Cold Fusion: True North
by Dal Niente
Summary: Part Two of Cold Fusion.  Metro City is under repair, and an angry young man wants to make a name for himself.  More importantly, Megamind and Roxanne are together...but how long can he expect it to last? Rated M for later chapters. Romance angst drama.
1. Chapter 1

And we're back!

The update schedule on this won't be quite as rapid as it was in Part 1 – sorry, everybody, but as inspiring as it was to come back to amazing wonderful emails every day after class, I don't think I can keep that kind of pace up. The way things are going, I think this is going to be a little bit longer than Cold Fusion.

That being said, I've already more or less finished chapters one through five, so once again, fear not – this story is not totally complete, but I will not abandon it. I hope it's as much fun to read as it is to write! I'm still trying to decide whether the plot on this one is actually decent, so let me know what you think as the story progresses?

So…Here's part two of Cold Fusion: True North. The first chapter is really short. Critiques and constructive criticism are welcome! And I don't own Megamind or any of the characters.

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><p><strong>Chapter 1<strong>

Megamind is tired.

More than tired, actually. It's barely a month since Titan and there haven't been any villains so far, and Megamind is _exhausted_.

His new, non-villainous life is actually going a lot more smoothly than he had thought it would. Thinking up ways to fix the city is devastatingly simple, and even though he's still trying to stay out of the way for the most part, executing his plans is easy with several thousand tireless hovering machines constantly waiting for direction.

His meetings with the city's zoning board leave him jittery and dry-mouthed and longing for the opportunity to pick up even a screwdriver, but Megamind hasn't been able to get his hands dirty in a while. He hasn't had time. He writes the plans, and other people see that they're completed. That feels _weird_. He and Minion have been a two-man show since day one, and relying on others to carry out his plans makes him very, very nervous indeed.

And he is more tired than he can ever remember being, but it makes no _sense_; he doesn't have to work half as hard as he used to. The people are beginning to accept him, although most of them are still wary (he doubts he will ever fully have their trust); he delegates to the brainbots; Minion takes care of him; Roxanne…

Roxanne.

He hasn't seen her for more than an hour at a stretch in nearly two weeks. She swings back and forth when they're out together – one minute, she will be laughing and leaning against him as they walk together, and the next she will make some hurried excuse about why she has to leave, if not right _now_ then at least very soon. If she doesn't, she'll get short-tempered and tight-lipped, and those moods always make Megamind worry.

But he doesn't blame her, really. He broke her trust, and it's only natural that Bernard's face would remind her of that.

It's doubly difficult right now because Bernard turned up in the laundry last week, so Megamind can't impersonate him anymore, and right after that Roxanne had to go to Europe on business. She's working on a piece detailing the homelessness situations in various tourist hotspots – the last Megamind heard, she was in Amsterdam.

All things considered, however, and despite the rough spots, things between them are proceeding fairly well. Roxanne spends a lot of her free time at the lair – enough time that there's an extra toothbrush beside Megamind's bathroom sink. He is surprised at how _comfortable_ she is around all his machinery and failed experiments and oddities. And she gets along famously with Minion.

So they have their ups and downs, but Roxanne seems happy enough, and Megamind knows _he's_ happy – his heart leaps into his throat every time he sees her, and he thinks he might die when she smiles at him.

But happiness sets him on edge, and maybe that's why he's so tired. He's only really been _happy_ a few times in his life, and it's always been just before something awful happens. Every time he feels himself grinning anymore he immediately starts to feel a little bit sick and panicky. And then the questions start running through his mind like they always do.

How long will it last? How long can he _expect_ it to last? He has absolutely no point of reference, no way to even _begin_ to answer either of those questions, and that is deeply unsettling. He's flying through fog without a compass. And even if he had one, there's no magnetic pole to tell the needle which way to point.

He's starting to wonder which would be more painful: to wait for Roxanne to tear this new happiness from him, or to turn his back on her now, before he becomes too attached?

He knows which one would be _safer_, but he really doesn't want to think about that.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

_Across the city, a young man with too many books and too little experience watches his flock of tiny particles gather and then disperse behind double-thick capillary shields. Like clockwork, he tends to his calculations and his quarks, and the fire of creation burns in his eyes._

_Soon_.


	2. Chapter 2

Not much to say about chapter two…this is one I'm really not sure about, but I wrote it a solid three weeks ago and it still reads okay to me. For some reason, I have a really hard time starting fics. Once the action gets going they're easier to write, but the first two or three chapters seem to be the most difficult for me. Ehn.

Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed! You guys are made of some serious awesome.

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><p><strong>Chapter 2<strong>

As soon as she sees the driver, Roxanne's heart sinks. _Of all the random, rotten luck_. If she'd recognized him beforehand, she would have hailed a different taxi, but it's too late now. She's just finished wrestling her luggage into the backseat and she isn't about to drag it all back out, even if it _would_ be wiser to wait for someone who hasn't taken her to the Lair before.

She slides in next to her suitcase and pulls the door closed after her, and the driver glances back at her in the rearview mirror, dark eyes dancing with amusement. "See you're still in one piece," he greets her. "Where to, Miss Ritchi?"

She groans. She should have him take her to her apartment so that he doesn't suspect anything, but she'll only get another cab from there and take it to the lair, and then she'll have to pay twice as much and she's spent quite enough on this trip as it is. She got some great footage from Amsterdam, more than enough to finish the piece she's been working on, but Roxanne is still four hundred dollars or so in the hole thanks to the extra pictures she picked up. A small price to pay for security – her grip on her camera bag tightens unconsciously, and she hopes that Megamind will be pleased – but still. Her job pays well, but she isn't exactly a millionaire.

"The same place as before, please," she tells him, and he shrugs.

"Abandoned warehouses it is," he announces. "Your funeral."

As they pull away from the curb, Roxanne tilts her head up next to the window and marvels again at how far along the Metro Tower rebuild is. The amount of work that the combined efforts of an ex-criminal mastermind, the city's zoning board, and a small army of solar-powered brainbots can accomplish in just over a month is really incredible. The tower is far from being finished, but without Megamind's help it wouldn't be half as far along as it is.

Megamind.

Roxanne will feel better once she's gotten the film footage to the guys at the office – she doesn't usually do documentary pieces, and it's been looming over her head for what feels like _ages_, and then Bernard turned up again, madder than hell and with good reason to be. And Roxanne made the mistake of admitting to her brother that she had 'broken up' with Bernard, so now their _mother_ is asking questions…Roxanne knows she's been quick and snappish. Hopefully she'll be able to relax a little now that she's back on solid ground with her job, at least.

Documentaries. Roxanne _hates_ documentaries. Luckily she is pretty sure that her boss picked up on that – if he didn't, then Jo must have had a quiet word with him behind closed doors – so she shouldn't have to do any more anytime soon.

And hopefully she and Megamind will be able to go _out_ somewhere again soon, and it'll be nice not to have to look at Bernard every time. That was harder than she expected. She hates having to look up and see a mask and know that Megamind is hiding who he is because of _her_, but more than that, she didn't like knowing that the real Bernard was lost somewhere.

She shakes her head and looks around for a distraction; she'll be home soon enough and she's too tired for any real introspection. There is an orange-and-white book on the passenger seat that looks promising, and she leans forward to reach it.

The cab swerves a little. "Hey, hey!" the driver exclaims. "Seat belt, lady. I will _not_ be held accountable if we crash and you die."

"Are you saying you're a bad driver?" She looks at the book. _Rules for Radicals_, by Saul Alinsky. _A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals_.

"I'm a very good driver," he protests. "It's the other bozos out there you gotta watch out for."

Roxanne snorts, but buckles her seat belt and settles back, flipping the book open to a dog-eared page. _I remember this_, she thinks. She'd had to read it back in college, for one of her political science requirements. She had been cynical about it, and written a thirty-odd page essay comparing it to Machiavelli's _The Prince_.

Roxanne looks up at the rearview mirror, catches the driver's eye. "Hey," she says. "Can I borrow this?"

He grimaces. "Aw geez, Miss Ritchi, I wish I could lend it to you, but it's my daughter's. She needs it for class."

Roxanne tosses it back on the seat where she found it, a little disappointed. She suspects Megamind would have enjoyed reading it.

Of course, that was if he hadn't read it already. It does seem to be the sort of thing he would have run across on his way to becoming an evil overlord, and finding books he _hasn't_ read is difficult. Roxanne supposes she shouldn't be surprised about that, but she is – her prior encounters with him had given her the impression that he was equal amounts brilliant and insane, but not particularly cultured.

For the most part, though, Megamind seems to be enjoying his move into social acceptance, even if it does mean he can no longer call Oxford professors at all hours of the night just to harass them in Old English about their pronunciation. From what Roxanne had been able to gather, Megamind's pronunciation of Old English is more exact than it is of modern English.

That one had thrown her for a loop.

But it's entirely reasonable that Megamind should have an extensive knowledge of literature, history, and politics. He is a genius, after all, by Earth standards; and according to Minion, his genetic background also tends towards the "ridiculously brilliant." Megamind's parents were the only ones of their race to figure out faster-than-light space travel in time to send their son into the void.

So, yes, he is legitimately smart, but he hides it so _well_. Megamind still plays up the buffoon in public, and more often than not around the Lair as well. Roxanne estimates that his true nature lies somewhere between "clown" and "pretentious academic," and she chuckles to herself. Maybe her first impression of him was the closest: equal parts brilliant and mad.

"Meter's running, Miss Ritchi."

The driver's voice startles her out of her reverie, and she jumps and looks around. The taxi is parked a block down from the Lair.

"Sorry," she gasps, and scrambles out of the car, tugging her suitcase and handbag after her.

"You need any help with those?"

"No, no, I'm fine," Roxanne assures him when he moves to get out of the taxi. She pushes some money into his hand and turns to leave.

"Here," his voice calls her back. He's leaning out his window. "You've given me too much again. Did the same thing last time. I can't accept this, Miss, it isn't right."

Roxanne shakes her head. "For your continued discretion," she tells him, and he blinks. Then he grins and taps his nose with one finger.

"Hold on," he says, and this time he does get out. He leans against the top of the car, scribbles something on a scrap of paper, then folds it in half and hands it to her. "You need discretion, Miss Ritchi, you give me a call. Any hour. Fee'll be higher, but you're not the first."

Roxanne smiles gratefully. _He's not bad_, she thinks, and waves as he drives away, then glances down at the paper. _Akos Haskins_, and a 906 phone number. She's just picking up contacts right and left, isn't she?

Roxanne grins, then shifts her purse to her shoulder and hurries up a block to the secret entrance. The panel is easy to find, and she thumbs the door open impatiently. Three nights abroad and then flying in last night at six PM and taking the intercity bus line north has completely messed up her sense of time. It may be nearly noon, but all Roxanne wants to do is get into the Lair and go to sleep.

No rest for the wicked, apparently. The grating, high-pitched whine of a circular saw hits her like a ton of brick as soon as she walks through the door. She closes it after her and hooks her elbow around the handle of her suitcase, then shoves her fingers in her ears. It's not a comfortable position; she has to bend almost double and hobble like Igor towards the source of the noise, but aural health takes precedence over dignity and she's too tired to think of just leaving her suitcases at the door. Megamind is in his workshop, leaning over a piece of sheet metal with a blowtorch while Minion feeds the metal through the screeching saw.

Roxanne stands back and waits; there's no way she is going a step closer to that shower of sparks. She has done that only once, about a week into the relationship. Megamind had nearly bitten her head off.

"Don't get me wrong," he'd said once he had calmed down a little, "I don't mind you being here while I'm working. I might even ask for your help on some of the smaller projects – you're good with the brainbots and they're fairly easy to repair. But you _have to wear protective gear_. The stuff I work with is _dangerous_."

Initially, she had been startled that he had actually snapped at her, and worried about what he might be like if he ever got truly angry. But the last part had eased that worry almost entirely. Megamind rarely says what he actually feels, but Roxanne can hear "_I don't want you to get hurt_" loud and clear.

Their backs are to her, and she stands back and watches them work until they finish the sheet; they were already nearly done when she had come in, or she would have just gone and dropped her things off in Megamind's room. Finally the saw slows down and the fan shuts off. Megamind turns off the plasma torch and rolls his shoulders, sends a ripple down his spine, and pushes the welding mask up and away from his face.

"Good work," he says approvingly, looking at the cut metal. "I think we're getting this. The titration should be nearly done, I'll—" He turns around and his face lights up. "You're back!"

Minion waves as Megamind all but sprints towards her. Roxanne laughingly holds up her hands to try to ward him off and backs away. "I've been on a plane for nine hours and a bus for ten, I stink, don't _touch_ me, I'm gross."

He wraps both arms around her anyway, smiling like sunrise. "Don't ca-aare," he singsongs in her ear. "Don't ca-aare, you're ba-aack…"

His heavy apron is hot from the fire and covered in metal dust and burn marks, and his protective gloves are scratchy even through Roxanne's tee-shirt, but she doesn't mind. She pulls her head to the side and presses a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. He tastes like salt and smoke, and there's a sooty smudge down the side of his face and over one eye, and he hums happily and knocks his forehead against hers.

"Okay," he says after a moment. "Maybe you smell a _little_ funny."

She laughs and shoves him away. "You're a goofball, you know that? I want a shower and then I am going to sleep for a month."

Megamind opens his mouth to say something, but Minion interrupts by clanking over and sweeping both of them into the air in a bone-crushing hug.

_I missed this_, Roxanne thinks as Megamind kicks and squawks a protest, and she bursts into exhausted laughter and hugs Minion's dome. "Good to see you, Minion!"

"You too, Miss Ritchi," he says, setting her on her feet again. Megamind jumps nimbly down and straightens his apron, straight-faced and glowering, the picture of offended dignity. Minion grins, and stage-whispers, "_He sulked the whole time you were gone_."

Megamind spins. "_Minion_—_!_"

"Oh _stop_," Roxanne tells him, and reaches up and swings the welding mask back down over his face. His snort of laughter echoes out from behind it.

"I'm glad you're home," he says, lifting the mask again. "You go take your shower, I've got a precipitate to check on."

He turns and tromps off, jabbing Minion with a sharp elbow on his way past. "Lunch at twelve-thirty, Sir," Minion calls after him, and Megamind flaps a hand before disappearing around a corner.

Minion turns back to Roxanne. "I expect to see you at lunch, too, Miss Ritchi. I know you're jet-lagged but the fastest way to readjust is to try to adhere to normal sleep patterns." He takes Roxanne's suitcase and tucks it under one arm before she can tell him to leave it. "I've _got_ it," he says when she tries to protest. "Honestly, there's no point in you dragging it all that way when it's no trouble for me."

Roxanne huffs a little, but there's no use trying to argue with Minion. "Normal sleep patterns, my eye," she mutters. "I'd like to see Megamind sleep through the night."

Minion grins. "Do you know what a Circadian rhythm is?"

Roxanne shakes her head.

"It's a roughly twenty-four hour cycle that's regulated by your body's internal systems," Minion tells her. "It's what tells you when to sleep and when to wake up. Most animals and plants have a Circadian rhythm of some kind – one kind of plant folds its leaves at night and opens them during the day. They keep to that twenty-four hour cycle even when kept in total darkness. It's why you're jet-lagged. You can re-train your body, entrain it, to a new time zone, but it takes a little while to adjust." He pauses. "It's also why Sir's sleep patterns differ from yours."

Roxanne blinks. "I'm not sure I follow. He's jet-lagged? As far as I know, he's never left the city."

"Miss Ritchi, have you forgotten what he is?"

She stares up at him, uncomprehending. He's laughing at her; his brown eyes are dancing and his toothy smile is wider than usual.

"You _have_," he marvels. "I _told_ him you didn't care, but he insisted that it was too difficult to look past. Huh."

Roxanne is usually pretty good at figuring out what Minion is talking about – he's a lot easier to understand than Megamind is, at any rate, but she honestly has no idea what he means. "What?"

"He's an alien, Miss Ritchi. Our planet's cycle was shorter than yours is. He dances to a different drum."

If Roxanne were a more dramatic person, she would have facepalmed. She _had_ forgotten. Not forgotten, rather; it was pretty hard to _forget_ that Megamind wasn't from Earth, but it hadn't occurred to her even with Minion's prompting. "_That's_ why he keeps such odd hours."

Minion nods. "Yep! He's partially attuned to Earth's systems, but there's no way for him to ever completely re-regulate his body's natural cycles." He sighs a little. "And his patterns are weird even by his people's standards. There aren't enough hours in the day for him to do all the things he wants to."

Roxanne smiles. She's noticed that. "So what would be a normal pattern for him?"

Minion shrugs. "_I_ don't remember. Something like, sleep from two until six or seven, PM and AM. That's the standard, I think. But he hates wasting daylight, so he stays up through the first sleep-cycle, and then he hits what he calls the exhaustion high and he says that's just fun, so he stays awake through that…honestly? Sometimes he just passes out and sleeps for a day. He hates when that happens."

Roxanne's mind is spinning. They are standing outside the door to Megamind's room, but she doesn't want to just stop talking about this – it's _interesting_. "What about you?"

Minion looks taken aback. "Me?"

"Don't you have any problems with sleeping? You're an alien, too, aren't you?"

Minion shrugs again. "My people are deep-sea fish; we're built for total darkness," he says, and Roxanne remembers how he had spun and floated, dazed, after the explosion of blinding light that 'killed' Metro Man. "Besides, I'm his minion. I would tune myself to his biorhythm if he _had_ any sort of regular pattern. Mostly I just stay awake through the danger hours, then power down when he turns his attention to…quieter pursuits."

He frowns. "Speaking of which, I need to go make lunch. We can talk about this more later, if you want."

Roxanne nods, and Minion puts the suitcase down on the floor next to her. "Thanks, Minion. You're the best."

He smiles back at her as he continues down the hall. "I'm just glad you're back safe."

Roxanne is glad, too. She hasn't been gone long, and she enjoys traveling, but she missed the frantic here-there-everywhere of the Lair. She spends more of her time there than at her apartment, anymore.

She is halfway to the shower when what Minion said sinks in. Roxanne has always assumed that Megamind and Minion work so well together because they've known each other almost all their lives, but it's certainly possible that they're linked to each other on a deeper level.

She frowns a little. She really has no idea what Megamind's brain is capable of beyond intellectual pursuits. Are he and Minion 'attuned' to one another, or is it a one-way street? And if they are linked on a mental level, and the link _does_ go both ways, is there a chance that Megamind might someday be able to read _her_ thoughts?

It's a bit of a stretch, and probably unlikely, but something about the idea of sharing her private thoughts with someone else settles like a rock in the pit of her stomach.


	3. Chapter 3

Yeah, so I just spent several hours researching blue-tinged elements to stick in the middle of porphyrin heme rings. Probably I'll end up going with cobalt, since that seems to be the most widely-accepted Why Megs Is Blue explanation.

gdi, ye muses, leave me alone! *wards muses off with encyclopedia*

Here's the third chapter! ^^

**Chapter 3**

When Roxanne gets out of the shower, she dresses before exiting the bathroom. If she doesn't, she might sit down on the bed just for a moment, and if she does _that_, she'll probably fall asleep right then and there. _If you give a mouse a cookie_, she thinks ruefully, and slips on the moccasins she's taken to wearing around the Lair. They're good house shoes – they slip on and off easily, they keep her feet warm, and they're closed-toed. Megamind has been very clear about how he feels about sandals in the lab and workshop.

There are _rules_ about the Lair, which bothers Roxanne sometimes, but none of them are frivolous. Most exist as safety precautions, which she can appreciate – she's comfortable around flamethrowers and chainsaws because she's used to them, not because they aren't dangerous. She just wishes Megamind would get around to writing the rules down.

Her stomach grumbles at her, reminding her about lunch – although she feels like it should be dinner – and she pauses only to grab her camera bag before hurrying down the hall into the kitchen.

Megamind is already there, elbow-deep in a ham sandwich that he waves at her when she comes in.

"Sorry I'm late," she says. "It's good to have a shower with real water pressure again."

He cocks his head, chewing like mad, and Roxanne resists the urge to die laughing.

"The hotels I stayed at had really old plumbing," she explains, grinning. "The showers weren't much. The baths were nice, though."

Megamind swallows, ducking his chin forward a little as he does so. It's more of a gulp, really; he's not a patient person, and he asks "Why don't they just renovate?" before he even has time to inhale.

"Part of the appeal of some of the old buildings is that they're historic. Renovating could lower the value of the rooms, depending on what they're advertising." She pulls out a chair that grates squeakily on the cement floor and drops into it with a sigh. "Megamind, listen, are you psychic?"

He blinks a few times. "Come again?"

Minion slides a plate over to Roxanne, and she nods her thanks and starts eating. "Minion said he could tune himself to your biorhythms," she says. "What does that mean?"

He sends Minion a Look.

"_What?_" Minion asks. "I was telling her about why you never sleep."

That's all he has to say. No further explanation is required. Roxanne can almost _see_ Megamind flashing through what must have been said.

_Recent return from overseas = jet-lag. She mentioned a nap, jet-lag + nap = longer re-adjustment period; longer re-adjustment period = detrimental to normal sleep patterns; intention to nap + presence at lunch = not napping, so something happened to change her mind and the last person she talked to was Minion—Logical Extrapolation: Minion told her not to go to sleep. _

_Fact: Minion doesn't talk about our mutuality unless prompted, and Roxanne is sarcastic and tired and probably in an ironic mood—Logical Extrapolation: Roxanne picked up on the incongruity of Minion preaching the benefits of normal sleep patterns and my inability to sleep more than four hours at a stretch and commented on it._

_Logical Extrapolation: Minion explained why my sleeping patterns are off. _

_Logical Extrapolation: Roxanne noticed that Minion sleeps regularly and asked why he was able to adjust to Earth's light cycle._

_Conclusion: Minion told Roxanne that he isn't attuned to Earth, he's attuned to me, except I'm a freak even by our standards so he usually just does his own thing_.

All told, it takes him about three seconds to come to the right conclusion. "Ah-ha-ha," he says, and nods. "No. No, not in the sense you're thinking, no. I'm not a telepath. Minion and I…" He glances sideways at the fish, hesitates. "We're linked, yes, but on a biochemical level. Not mental."

Roxanne exhales. "So you won't be able to read my thoughts?"

He opens his mouth and then stops, darting another quick, begging glance at Minion, who tilts his body in Roxanne's direction. Megamind winces, looks back at Roxanne. "Ahhm. Not…as such, no."

Roxanne's eyes narrow but she doesn't say anything. Megamind looks very nervous; his green eyes are flicking back and forth between hers until he rounds on Minion without warning. "Did you _really_ have to tell her about that? _Now?_ It couldn't have waited?"

"I told you yesterday, Sir. You're in deep enough already."

Megamind groans and slumps back in his chair, rests his head in one hand and closes his eyes. He looks almost pained.

"Tell me what?" Roxanne says slowly.

Megamind glances up at her. "My species…has some…" He sighs and waves a hand in an inarticulate, frustrated gesture. "_Minor_ empathic capabilities. That's all. I'm not – _telepathic_, I can't hear your thoughts. Mostly it's just that we tend to be really good at reading people."

Roxanne leans back, blinking at him. "So you can feel what I'm feeling. Will I be able to feel you?"

"Ah, no." Megamind shakes his head. "No, I can't feel what you're feeling, and no, you cannot link back to me. Like I said. Not a mental thing."

"But you and Minion—"

"Minion and I share a bond, but we're from the same _planet_," Megamind says flatly. "There are things, chemical compounds, running through our bodies that are _completely_ foreign to you and totally incompatible with _your_ body's chemical receptors – such as they are."

He is growing increasingly animated, his motions ever more erratic, and he's looking anywhere and everywhere but at Roxanne.

"My body is more heavily reliant on a chemical biosystem than yours – _that's_ where the empathy comes from. It's not a _mental_ link, it's that I produce pheromones _constantly_ to augment emotional expression, and my species has evolved to pick up on the emotional pheromones of those around me."

He utters a sharp, hysterical laugh that makes her jump. "Trouble with that is, _you can't do it_. None of you can. I mean, I'm sitting here, _screaming_ my head off, and you're just _sitting there_ like a _lump_ or a _tumor_ or something and you don't feel a thing—"

"Did you just call me a tumor?"

"—and Minion told you about how the dehydration gun works on nerves?" He runs both shaking hands backwards over his skull, grinning like a madman. "Well, to add to _that_ I can regenerate nervous tissue so I hardly feel any physical pain if an injury doesn't break the skin, but emotions-wise if I don't get enough caffeine to dull my receptors it's just _constant overload_ for me because _none of you_ know how to regulate your exocrine glands!" He throws his hands up in the air and then collapses back into his chair, panting and staring at Roxanne. A moment later he says, "And I just called you a tumor, yes. I'm sorry. Jesus…" And he buries his face in his hands.

Roxanne waits for a minute before asking quietly, "Feel better?"

"Mnnng."

"Coffee, Sir," Minion says, setting a mug on the table by Megamind's plate. He holds up the pot and points at it, raising his eyebrows at Roxanne.

She nods. A lot. Rapidly. What she _wants_ is something closer to vodka, but coffee will have to do.

Across from her, Megamind hasn't moved, and Roxanne reaches across the table and scooches his mug closer to him. "Drink your caffeine, Space Oddity. I think I get what you're saying."

He lifts his head and stares at her. "You're _still_ not angry."

She grins quizzically at him over the rim of her mug and shakes her head, then blinks when the liquid hits her tongue. She knows decaf when she tastes it. What is Minion playing at?

Megamind shakes his head in disbelief, then tilts it back. Roxanne pauses to watch.

Megamind doesn't _drink_ coffee, exactly – not the same way she drinks it. He just tips his head back, opens his mouth, and pours the liquid down his throat. When the mug is empty, he swallows with a painful-sounding gulp and looks back at Roxanne, who is gazing at him with something like bewildered amazement.

"What?"

"How do you do that? Just pour it straight down light that?"

He stares at her for a moment, and then his mouth abruptly pulls into a grin and he points at his neck. "Total control," he says smugly.

Her eyes narrow again, but this time she's grinning. "Bull."

"No, no," he insists. "It's true. Total control."

Then the smile slips off his face, and his eyes go wide for a moment as he inhales, and then his face relaxes completely. "Ahh. There we go." His eyes fall closed and his head rolls to the side, and the tension bleeds out of his thin frame. "Minion, you're _amazing_," he sighs, and melts into a smiling puddle on the table, head pillowed on one outstretched arm.

"Thank you, Sir," the fish says lightly. "I try. Incidentally, did you know you can _buy_ caffeine tablets?"

Roxanne can't hold it in anymore. She bursts out laughing. One of Megamind's eyes slits open at Minion. "Really? Pure?"

"Cheap, too," Minion says, but he catches Roxanne's eye behind Megamind's back, mouths, _He should go to sleep_. He closes his eyes and tips to one side briefly.

Roxanne had been hoping to show Megamind what she had come up with in Amsterdam, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen for a while. She pushes her chair back.

It's like there's a string running from her to Megamind; he sits up as soon as she rises, green eyes searching worriedly. "What? Where are you going?"

She smiles. "You," she says, "are going to go take a nap."

"But it's still light out," he protests.

Roxanne rolls her eyes and comes around the table, pulls him to his feet. "I don't care. You need to sleep. Go on. I'll catch up with you in a minute, I just want to help Minion with the dishes."

Minion, for once, does not protest.

"It'll mess everything up, though." Megamind looks genuinely confused. "You won't be able to sleep tonight."

"Neither will you," she points out, "and I plan on enjoying being able to keep up with you for as long as I can. I've got tomorrow off, and then it's the weekend. Go. I'll be there soon."

Megamind looks up at Minion, who scowls down at his master. "You already know what I'm going to say, Sir."

Megamind blinks, then grins in tired defeat. "Yeah, okay," he mutters, and turns and slouches out.

Neither Roxanne nor Minion move until they hear the echo of his bedroom door closing behind him. Minion opens his mouth, but Roxanne beats him to it. "Shame on you," she says quietly, "drugging him like that."

He shakes his head. "You don't understand."

"So tell me." Roxanne levels a stare at him that could freeze mercury. "What is so dire that you have to slip 200 milligrams of straight caffeine into his drink _without telling him?_"

"When he said overload, he _meant_ overload," Minion explains, and now that Megamind is gone, his carefree façade is beginning to crack. Roxanne pauses – Minion looks worried, _very_ worried, and Roxanne realizes that Minion probably worries about Megamind a lot more than he lets on. "Over time, I think he'll become desensitized to your chemical signature, but it's still fairly early yet. He's…right now, he picks up on _everything_. He sees everything. It's like a powerful hallucinogen," the fish tells her shakily, seizing on the only analogy he can think of that works. "He sees how everything around him _tastes_. Out here, in isolation, it's usually not so much that it bothers him, but he's spending so much time with people these days that he might be losing track of what _he_ is in all the mash-up of other chemicals. And with you here…?" Minion trails off, turning from side to side in his dome. "He's nearly _tripled_ his coffee intake in the past three months."

Roxanne frowns. "Am I hurting him, by being here?"

Minion hesitates. "You…_confuse_ him. He's tired a lot, and he isn't thinking clearly. His behavior is more erratic than it usually is." He blinks, and hastily adds, "Don't _leave_, though. He'll figure this out; he figures _everything_ out if he has enough time. It's just. _Hard_."

Roxanne nods, carrying the plates to the sink. Minion shoves her gently out of the way. "I'll take it from here," he says. "You go get some rest."

Roxanne half-smiles, confused. "But you said—"

The _Look_ Minion sends her speaks volumes, and she chuckles. "Okay. Rest. Okay."

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Megamind is already in bed when she gets there, lying on his side with his eyes closed. Roxanne gets into her pajamas as quietly as she can manage, but as soon as she climbs carefully in beside him, Megamind murmurs, "How much did he give me?"

Roxanne blinks at him, then almost kicks herself. _Minion, you're amazing_. Of course Megamind had known immediately, would have noticed the difference. "Two hundred milligrams."

"Two hundred…" He sighs a little, sniffs. He does not open his eyes. "Caffeine _pills_," he says softly. "Why didn't I think of that? It would be so simple."

Roxanne settles next to him, though not as close as usual. "You probably just had more important things on your mind. Does my being here hurt you, at all?"

He opens his eyes then and looks over at her, and he smiles. "Come here," he says, and pushes her shoulder gently, and she rolls over as well so that they are lying back to front, and he wraps both arms around her and tucks her head under his chin. "No, you aren't hurting me. Certainly not right now. Caffeine blocks my receptors, and that much should last me at least twelve hours or so."

"It's addictive, though, and Minion said—"

He snorts into her hair. "Roxanne, there are worse things than being a caffeine addict. And I can guess what Minion said. He forgets that I'm not half as fragile as he thinks I am, and he's been twice as protective of me since Titan happened."

She shifts a little, yawns. "Still. I've never seen you rant like that before, not about that."

"I know." He's quiet for a minute, and when he speaks again, Roxanna almost has to strain to hear him. "It's going to take me a while to get used to this. I know we haven't been together very long, and at the risk of sounding too serious – I worry, sometimes. A lot."

It's easier to talk to him in the dark, when she can't see his face. It seems to be the same for him – in the darkness, they are both only voices. "What are you worried about?"

"I'm not _human_."

"Megamind—"

His arms tighten very slightly. "Just listen. I worry that one day I am going to say something wrong or do something so completely insane that it wakes you up to the fact that you are dating someone who isn't even your _species_. If you suddenly turn around and realize that I'm _fucking blue_, with an ego the size of Brooklyn and a head-to-body ratio of a _Lego toy_—"

Roxanne snorts.

"I'm serious," Megamind exclaims. "I've done the calculations. The proportions are almost identical."

"I meant your ego," she tells him. "It's a lot larger than Brooklyn."

"We can't even go out in public together!" he snaps, and that's when she realizes just how serious he really is. "You don't deserve that. You deserve to be with someone who can at least go _out_ with you without wearing a disguise."

"And you _don't_ deserve that?" she shoots back.

"No." It's his initial response, knee-jerk reaction, and it makes Roxanne sit bolt upright.

"_No?_" she repeats, incredulous. "Excuse me. _No?_"

He sits up as well, defensive now and tired, but his receptors are out cold and he can think clearly for once. "Yes, _no_. For god's sake, Roxanne, I don't deserve _any of this_. People have _died_ because of me, and the casualties aren't going to stop now that I've switched sides. What happens when another villain shows up?" He spreads his hands helplessly. "I don't have super-speed or strength, or hearing, or laser vision. All I have is a head that's too big for my body and a brain to match!"

Roxanne puts her hands on his shoulders. "And a brain to match," she echoes. "And that brain can out-think any human on Earth twice over. You're more than a match for any villain. You were more than a match for the heroes who came after you, remember? All except Metro Man."

Megamind laughs a little bit. "Yeah, well. We just knew each other too well." He sobers. "But Titan was a challenge, more of a challenge than I'd like. We only barely beat him, you know that. We just got lucky."

"And there will be an element of danger to every confrontation," Roxanne agrees. "Otherwise they wouldn't be confrontations. It'll be difficult, but life hasn't been easy for either of us. We're used to difficulty." She smiles. "You'll be fine. And remember, you don't know that there will be any villains to fight. Sure, you defeated Titan, but that doesn't automatically label you Metro City's new hero. Who knows? Once the rebuild project is over, maybe people will finally just leave you alone."

His heart clenches. "That would be nice," he says in a low voice. But how else is he supposed to fix everything? He _has_ to pick a side, has to find some purpose. If no villains turn up, what else is he supposed to do?

Megamind had been Metro City's resident villain, and Metro Man had been the resident hero. Was there any other way? Would transient villains turn up, and then leave once he had defeated them? And what is he supposed to do in the meantime?

Roxanne is quiet while he spins through the questions, but when she lies down and Megamind finally curls up beside her, he is left with more questions than when he started and too few answers.

But he's exhausted, and Roxanne's breathing and heartbeat are slow and even, and finally he sighs and lets his eyes fall closed and follows her down into sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

I tell you what, folks, this chapter is a pain in the tail to reconcile with myself. I suppose that might be a good sign – Megamind's thought processes in this run almost directly counter to my own, so it might be a sign that the characterization is still derping along okay. And then again it might mean that it's so far beyond help that I couldn't salvage it with the power of a thousand suns. I can't tell. But people seem to like it, so yay?

This version has been heavily edited from the version on .

I don't own _Megamind _or anything associated with it!

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4<strong>

When Megamind wakes up again, he's alone. He dresses in silence, deep in thought, before going down the hall to the kitchen. Faint voices trail up from the catch-all room where he keeps his prototypes and rejects and drafting equipment – Roxanne and Minion are there, but they don't sound worried or upset and Megamind sees no reason to disturb them. He has a lot on his mind.

He looks at the coffeepot. It's full – it's always full, these days – but he reaches instead for the orange juice and the bottle of pills sitting by the sink. He takes one and pockets another for later. The pills are not timed-release the way he wants them to be, but he plans to refine the formula and structure, tailor it to suit his needs.

There is so much he doesn't know about how his species works. Minion is older than he is, but not by much, and he hasn't been able to supplement Megamind's knowledge as well as either of them would like.

_I should probably warn Roxanne_, he thinks. There's a good chance he'll tell her something that ends up being completely false. He sighs, leans against the sink and stares down into the orange-yellow liquid in his glass.

Relationships are _complicated_.

There's a clunk, a crash, and bright laughter from down the hall, and Megamind half-smiles. Then he hears footsteps coming closer, and his smile fades.

He's out the door almost before he knows what he's doing. All he knows is that he doesn't want to see Roxanne just yet, or Minion. Not right now. Ordinarily he wouldn't want to be parted from either of them, but right now – right now he needs some space.

Space, and someone to talk to who isn't Roxanne or Minion. There's the warden, who is as close to a father figure as Megamind has, but he tells himself that's just because he's known the warden for almost all his life and knows he can trust him. Whatever the reason, Megamind isn't really sure that the warden would want to see _him_right now, but that's a painful thought, and he does his best to avoid it.

This is one of the few times that Megamind is able to acknowledge that he wishes he had someone else around. Ordinarily he is fine with the usual solitude – Minion is a wonderful distraction and Megamind is a fairly solitary creature anyway, but sometimes he isn't sure if he prefers solitude because he enjoys it or if it's just because he's used to it. Besides Minion, he doesn't have any friends.

Well. Not _really_. Not in the conventional sense. But there's his old enemy, who is sort of a friend because of all they've put each other through. And as much as Megamind hates the thought of asking Wayne for input, he's the only one Megamind can really consider going to right now. He knows Wayne will help, if only because Wayne owes him.

He smiles to himself and twists his watch, then heads for the bay bridge. He'll walk. It's still early, and the sun is hidden behind a screen of heavy, dark clouds, so the breeze is cool on his skin. The air smells of lightning.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

The heavy door is, again, unlocked, but Megamind knocks a few times before he pushes it open. Knocking is a new thing for him, but he figures it's best to be polite. He goes in hesitantly – now that he knows Metro Man might still be in, he's reluctant to intrude. "Hello? Anyone home?"

There's no answer, so he claims the white armchair across from Wayne's couch, puts his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, closes his eyes, and settles down to wait.

He knows he really ought to just let the whole idea go, but he can't just forget about it. He's tried. He has _been _trying, and it hasn't worked - in his experience, that's a sign that something is still wrong. And he knows what's wrong, and what he has to do about it.

There's nothing else he can do. He's decided. It's the only way, really, much as it's going to kill him to go through with it.

Megamind knows his psychological profile. He knows he is obsessive, and he knows he has extremely low self-esteem. He knows he's hypervigilant and mistrustful, and he is pretty sure he's socially anxious to varying degrees. He knows he's hyperactive and has a short attention span. He knows he's egotistical.

The size of his ego might seem to be at odds with his low self-esteem, but it isn't, really. Megamind is aware of just how smart he actually is, and he is also aware that he is very, very good at what he does when he puts his mind to it. Most of his insecurities have to do with socializing, and what sort of image he has in the eyes of the public. Presentation.

But knowing _why _he is the way he is, and _why _he thinks the way he does, does not help him lay his fears to rest.

He tells himself,_ very firmly_, that the problem is with his new career path, and what it will mean for him and Roxanne. Roxanne's suggestion to simply wait and see what happens had been unrealistic; Megamind knows the score. He made a name for himself by defeating Titan. Bad guys are definitely going to come sniffing – maybe there won't be any real villains right away, but the city's criminals are going to start pushing their limits fairly soon, seeing just how much they can get away with. And after all Megamind has done to Metro City over the years (and the past few months in particular), he's unwilling to leave the people on their own.

He has to make things right. And there's so much he could do that he's never bothered to try before! The harbor filter is just the beginning. He's already outlined three new training programs for the Metro Police Academy, and he's planning on funding a renovation and expansion of the building. Metro City is Megamind's home, and if Wayne has really retired, then Megamind is going to defend his home with everything he has – and part of defending his home will be making sure the first line of defense is up to speed and well-equipped.

Of course he can't give them _all _dehydration guns. They'll have to make do with conventional weaponry. If he outfitted the MCPD with futuristic firearms, he'd bring the US government – possibly the UN as well – down on him like a ton of brick. He would be a threat instead of a hero, and Megamind really doesn't want to have to deal with the scientists in the Paranormal, Holistic, and Extraterrestrial Division again. He still has scars from last time. _God bless the warden for being a self-righteous pain in the ass_.

Besides, if he gave them his technology, he wouldn't be able to do any vigilante work should the need arise. He would just end up...Head of Research and Development, or something, embroiled in a lot of red tape and useless politicking.

But he'll train them, and he'll fund them, and he has a few ideas about semi-permanent external fortifications for the city itself.

He's excited. More excited than he has been about any doomsday device, though he'll never admit it. The fact of the matter is that _destroying _things takes very little finesse. Over the years, Megamind has raised destruction to an art form, but ultimately that's all he's ever done. _Making _the doomsday devices is the part that Megamind has always enjoyed the most, because there are so many things that can go wrong. _Using _his inventions had never been much fun until Metro Man came to stop him and added that little element of chaos.

Destruction and mayhem are simple. Child's play. Juvenile. But creation? Creation is difficult, complicated. Creation can blow up in your face.

_So I'm going to fix up Metro City. And when the new villains start testing their boundaries, I'm going to keep them in line_.

"And…there's a problem with that?"

"_Gah!_" Megamind jumps about a mile, then twists around in his seat and stares up at Wayne, who is lounging against the doorframe with an amused expression on his face. "Wh-what? You, how did you?"

Wayne grins, winks, aims a finger at him. "You were thinking aloud, little buddy."

Megamind's face slides back into his hands as Wayne comes around to sprawl on the couch. "Yippee."

Wayne studies the set of his former enemy's shoulders. He's made it a point, over the years, to know Megamind's buttons and how to push them and how to tell exactly how upset the other alien is, and right now Megamind isn't even bothering to try to hide it. Wayne decides to keep his tone brusque. "So what's eating you?"

"Uhm." Megamind scrubs shaky hands down over his face and lets them drop into his lap. "So. Roxanne and I are a thing, now."

Wayne raises his eyebrows. "There's nothing on the news," he says. He doesn't watch the news very often - it's hard to see things that are going wrong and stop himself from flying out to fix them - but still, something like this? Surely he would have heard _something_.

"Yeah, we're…keeping it private. It would look bad," Megamind clarifies when Wayne just looks puzzled.

"Ohhh." Wayne nods. "Smart."

Megamind snorts. "Maybe." Then his gaze sharpens. "Don't tell anyone."

Wayne laughs, waves an arm around at the empty hideout. "Look around you, Blue," he chuckles, "who am I gonna tell?"

"Even if you could, would you?"

Wayne blinks. Megamind's narrow features are arranged into an odd blend of wariness and defiance, and Wayne suddenly realizes just how odd it is that he had come here. Megamind tends to play his hand pretty close to the vest, emotionally speaking. Wayne has seen Megamind's walls go down a couple of times before, but that had been years ago, back when they were teenagers. He is, quite frankly, _astonished _that Megamind picked him to talk to instead of that fish.

Astonished, and kind of worried, because if Blue is talking to _him_, something must be wrong.

"Don't worry." Wayne shakes his head. "I won't say anything."

Megamind nods a few times. Wayne waits. Megamind will talk when he can bring himself to.

He doesn't have to wait for very long. "There are going to be villains, right?" Megamind blurts out. "_You _know that. I mean, I'll do it, I'm going to defend this city if it's the last thing I ever do, but…I. Roxanne. I…"

"You don't want to put her in danger."

"I _can't _put her in danger." Megamind shakes his head wildly. "If she were hurt – because of me – I couldn't stand it, I couldn't _stand _it." A disgusted expression flashes over his features, very briefly, and he glares angrily at nothing. "So what do I _do?_"

"You're asking me?"

"I'm asking you."

Wayne exhales slowly. "You protect her, I guess. As much as you can." _Even though she certainly doesn't need it_, he thinks. _You know that. What is this about, really?_

"Yes I _know that_," Megamind snaps, and Wayne remembers, too late, that the smaller man hates it when people state the obvious. "But how am I supposed to do it? Have you forgotten that I am _completely incompetent?_" His voice at the end is almost a snarl, but he composes himself almost immediately, sitting up straight and tucking his elbows close against his sides, knees together, hands curled around each other in his lap. He glares at Wayne, his expression almost haughty.

_Ohhh this is bad_, Wayne thinks. Megamind only makes himself small like that when he's genuinely angry or frightened.

"Look, little buddy," he says carefully. "You've only ever really fought _me_. Other opponents probably won't have any special powers you'll need to worry about. You'll be fine."

_But you've already thought of that, haven't you?_ He shakes his head and does his best not to give away what he's thinking, but really, what is Megamind doing here? Wayne knows him, and he knows something is very wrong with this picture. Megamind knows how people think, he knows how people will respond - and he knows Wayne _exceptionally _well. _He'll have already thought of everything I'm going to say, so what is he…_

And then it clicks.

Megamind is here not because he can't figure out what to do. He's here because he's already decided. But whatever he's going to do is so bad that he's seeking advice...oh.

_Ohhh. Oh, no_.

"You're going to leave her," Wayne says disbelievingly. Megamind looks away, hunching a little.

"It's the only way she'll be safe."

"'For her own good,' is that it?" Wayne shakes his head again, staring at the determined blue face across from him. "She'll hate you for that, Blue. Making decisions for her – she _hates _that."

Megamind nods. "Yes," he says, and smiles for the first time. "I know. That's the whole point."

Wayne wants to hit him. "That's the _point?_"

Megamind spreads his hands. He looks almost excited – like he's revealing his latest Dastardly Plan – but there's pain behind his eyes and hovering around the corners of his mouth, and his knees are still clamped together in front of him and his spine is still ramrod straight. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," he exclaims. "If _she's _my enemy and _they're _my enemies, they won't touch her!"

His eyes are shining. "Don't you get it, don't you see?" He lets out a sharp little laugh. "That's the fallback! Make her leave, then when she figures it out, because she will, you _know _she will," and Wayne has to admit that Megamind is probably right about that, "she'll guess my motivation. I've already laid the psychological groundwork. And she'll _hate _me!" He sounds delighted. "It'll work. I _know _it'll work. I just, I have to do this now, before she breaks up with me. It has to be the reason she leaves. Because even if I do it after, they'll still go after her on the off chance that I still have feelings for her."

Wayne frowns a little. All right, the last part of that had made next to no sense at all, but one sentence in particular had caught his attention. _I have to do this now, before she breaks up with me_.

And then it makes sense. Megamind is talking like he already knows Roxanne will leave him. As if all of this is to just head off a problem before it even becomes a problem.

He almost laughs, but he knows that would be a very bad idea. _You little coward_, he thinks. Megamind's phrasing has given him away: he isn't really doing this to protect Roxanne. He wouldn't have gone to Wayne if this was just about Roxanne; he would have just done it and devil take the consequences. Besides, Megamind _knows _that Roxanne is more than capable of taking care of herself when it comes to dealing with villains.

Wayne relaxes a little. This whole encounter has had him on edge; it's been so surreal – like he's been trying to convince Wayne that his reasons are valid. He sounded like a villain revealing his plot, but villains only try to justify their actions at the final confrontation. Build the machine, _then _think of a reason.

No, he had come to Wayne to look for an excuse. He still can't believe Roxanne wants him, so he's going to sabotage everything.

But he's a genius. He _must _know that's stupid. He probably does, but can't believe it.

Of course, Wayne could be wrong. Time to test the hypothesis. "That makes sense," he says, and nods slowly.

Megamind blinks. "Of – of course it does."

"Besides," Wayne continues, paying close attention to the emotions running rampant across Megamind's face as he speaks, "it isn't like she's going to want to be with _you _forever either way. This will keep her safe and save you both a lot of heartache in the long run."

Megamind pulls back, looking a little bit like he's been kicked in the stomach, and then poorly-concealed relief spreads over his features. _Hah_, Wayne thinks._ I was right_. He's just given Megamind the go-ahead for his plan.

_Oh, Blue, you are an _idiot. But at least he knows it. At least he knows, deep down, that this is stupid. That's something.

Megamind is still blinking. For all his genius, he's fairly easy to read. "Exactly," he says weakly. "That's exactly it. I mean. Why would she pick me?"

Wayne shrugs. If there's a way to convince Megamind, he doesn't know what it is. It would all be talk, anyway, and he knows how cheap talk is. Megamind, particularly, knows how cheap talk is and how fragile promises are.

Megamind stands, fidgeting nervously. "Okay. I...Thank you for being honest. I was never here."

Wayne shrugs again. "Sure," he says. "Glad I could help," and watches his former enemy until the door clicks softly shut behind him.

And then he dives for the phone.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

"And this one?" Roxanne points at a pair of black ski boots with what look like small rockets mounted on the soles. They're polished, and they have their own shelf away from the other unused inventions. "What were these supposed to be?"

Minion grimaces. "Those were a nightmare," he mutters. "They're jet-boots. They're fully functional, they just don't work quite as well as he expected them to. We don't use them."

Roxanne grins. "What, did he forget to include a brake in these, too?"

"You laugh," Minion says seriously, "but those are probably his biggest overall failure to date. He underestimated both the rigidity of the boot and the acceleration sensitivity on his first test run."

Roxanne looks at the boots and thinks for a minute, but can't quite figure out what Minion means. She shakes her head.

Minion lifts one of the boots down from the shelf and holds it out to Roxanne. "Careful," he warns as she reaches for it. "It's heavy."

"I think I can handle it." She's surprised, though, at just how heavy it actually is. She quickly lowers it to the floor, only barely avoiding dropping it, then looks up to see that Minion is trying not to laugh at her.

"Thirty-two kilos," he tells her in answer to her unspoken question. "Just a little bit over seventy pounds."

"So…" Roxanne frowns down at the boot. "He put them on and…hit the gas too hard?"

"If his bones weren't as strong as they are, or if he had been just a little more enthusiastic, these things would have torn off his legs."

Roxanne's head snaps up and she stares. "Are you serious?"

Minion nods. "Oh, absolutely." He slides a hand through the air and makes a _schkkkkk _noise. "Just like that. Luckily he included a failsafe – when he fell over, they automatically shut off. He was hurt really badly, but he recovered."

Roxanne looks down at the boot. She isn't about to try to pick it up again. "How badly?"

Minion purses his lips. "He hyperextended both knees, cracked one of his kneecaps, and tore both hips out of their sockets. Various muscle and ligament problems, and don't get me started on what it did to his joints. All in all, these death traps kept him out of commission for nearly a month. Two, if you count the neck and spinal injuries - those persisted for a while. He still has scars on the backs of his legs."

"Dear _god_," Roxanne utters.

"This was years ago, back when we were just starting out." Minion replaces the boot on its shelf. He doesn't seem to even notice the weight, and Roxanne has to wonder just how strong his gorilla suit actually is. "I was all for destroying the things, but he insisted we keep them around as a reminder of what can happen if we aren't careful."

_No wonder he's so detail-oriented_. Roxanne shakes her head. Most of the old instruments and discarded ideas and prototypes Minion has shown her over the past few hours have been interesting or useful to varying degrees, and some of them (like the battle sporks) have been downright comical. But the boots are really dangerous. Well, most of Megamind's old inventions are dangerous, but none of the others had gone so horribly wrong.

Then again, if he hadn't known how to use what he made…

"Wow."

They hear the slam of a faraway door, then the unmistakable sound of hard-soled boots clop-clopping across cement floors. "Minion," Megamind calls. "Minion, did you move the three-dimensional projectors? I looked in the ceiling mounts, but –" He stops dead when he sees Roxanne. "Oh. Hello. What are you…?"

His eyes move past her to the black boots on the wall and he gasps. "Minion! Don't show her _that!_" He almost leaps forward, one long hand locking around Roxanne's arm like a vise as if to pull her away. "You shouldn't – why would you –"

"I – I just asked him to show me around," Roxanne says hastily, her heart racing. Megamind's sudden outburst had taken her by a little too much surprise. "You've got so much stuff back here, some of it's really cool."

"Yeah, but these are _mine_." He looks so indignant that Roxanne cannot help but laugh a little and relax. "It's _private_," Megamind insists.

"Okay, okay," Roxanne says, then winces. "Um. Ow?"

He looks down, then snaps his hand away from her arm. "Oh-god-I-am-so-sorry."

Roxanne is still kind of laughing. "It's okay, I know you didn't mean it. What's a three-dimensional projector?" Getting Megamind to talk about his inventions, letting him show off a bit - that tends to be the easiest way to calm him down. "Can I help with it?"

"It's like a holo—" Minion begins, but Megamind cuts him off.

"Actually," he says, "I think – I think I'd like to be left alone for a little while." When Roxanne blinks, he adds, "If that's okay. Is that okay?"

"It's absolutely okay," she tells him. He's never asked her to leave him alone before, but of course it's fine. "I actually need to get home for a bit and do some laundry and pick up some groceries. Should I come back tonight, tomorrow…?"

Megamind hesitates. "Tomorrow would probably be better," he says slowly, and Roxanne nods.

"Okay. I guess I'll see you tomorrow, then." She opens her arms, asking for a hug – sometimes Megamind does not want to be touched, and she isn't sure if this is one of those times – but he surprises her with a quick kiss, then ducks away before she can touch him, walking quickly over to his drafting table.

Roxanne glances up at Minion, questioning, but the fish looks just as confused as she feels, so she just gives Minion a quick hug and a wave as she escapes.

The fish turns towards Megamind.

"Please, Minion," Megamind says quietly, without looking up, and after a minute, Minion clanks away.

And Megamind bends over his table. He shouldn't have kissed her, he knows it was stupid, but he just couldn't help himself. She had smelled so _confused_, so unsure about whether she had done something wrong. Besides, that was probably the last chance he'll ever have.

He's doing the right thing. She had been downright _frightened_when he had panicked and grabbed her. He focuses on the smell of the fear she had tried to hide from him.

What he has in mind is incredibly easy. He already has all the equipment – really, all he has to do is program it to answer his cues instead of play pre-recorded video. Megamind is sure he can be a puppet-master – he is less certain that he could actually, physically involve himself with someone other than Roxanne, even if only for a few seconds.

So he'll use a combination of stock footage and overlays to pull this off. It won't be too hard. It'll be easy. And it won't hurt a bit.

_And Roxanne needs me to protect her. Yeah, right_.

Megamind has never been good at lying to himself.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

_It's almost done. The calculations are finished, the board is set. Today, maybe, or tomorrow. He can wait. Maybe he'll go out to dinner tonight, splurge a little, before the world knows his name._

_He nods to himself, smiling at his machine._

_He's waited this long for recognition. He can wait a little longer._


	5. Chapter 5

This is a much shorter chapter than the last one. Also, I'm probably going to be going back and editing Chapter 4 when I have time. It was kinda confusing. To clarify, Megs knows perfectly well that Roxanne doesn't need to be protected; he just wanted an excuse to make her leave. And he wanted to make her leave because he can't stop thinking she'll leave him anyway. But deep down he knows that's stupid. -_- And that's why he needed the excuse.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed! Thank you to everyone who critiqued! I'm just going to leave this plate of cookies here for you all. :)

**Chapter 5**

Roxanne has to wait until she's done with work to head over to the lair – when she finally sends the last email, it's already six o'clock. _Damn_.

She pulls out her cell phone to text Megamind, to see if he wants her to bring dinner to the lair or if Minion already has plans. He's been oddly quiet all day – usually the two of them text back and forth from time to time, but the film guys have kept Roxanne hopping about the footage, so she hasn't looked at her cell phone – and when she opens the phone she sees why. The screen is dark.

Roxanne frowns. She rarely turns her phone off. She tries to turn it on, only to find that the battery is, in fact, dead.

Oh well. She'll just ask when she gets there, she decides, and then hails a taxi at random, rather than call Akos. His number is in her phone.

The driver who lets her out near the lair looks doubtful, but doesn't say anything about the abandoned piers or the warehouses possibly being dangerous – minus two points, in Roxanne's mind. But the cab doesn't pull away, either, and Roxanne can see that the driver is watching her, and that's plus two points.

"Hello," Roxanne calls when she enters the lair. "Anyone home?" _He's probably too focused on drafting something_, she thinks, and grins when she sees the light shining out from under the heavy curtain. It's closed, which is unusual, but she figures Megamind has his reasons and she isn't shy about pulling it back.

What she sees makes her stop dead in her tracks.

Megamind's 'reasons' for having the curtain closed has red hair and freckles. And her hands are all over Megamind.

Roxanne's thought processes slam to a halt. _Not possible_, she thinks, but it _has_ to be. What's more, Roxanne is good at distinguishing genuine reactions from fake ones – she's a reporter, she knows when someone is wearing a real smile. And she can tell that Megamind is genuinely enthusiastic.

"_What_," she says, and that's as far as she gets. The pair scrambles guiltily apart, and Megamind opens his mouth to say something, but Roxanne isn't interested.

"No," she snarls. "No, whatever you're about to say, _save it_." She turns on her heel and stalks towards the door.

Megamind's voice sounds strangely distant behind her. "But –"

"Shut it, Megs. Go find someone who cares."

If Roxanne had turned around before storming out, she might have seen Megamind and the other girl flicker and vanish into thin air. If she had gone deeper into the lair, she would have seen the _real_ Megamind slump over his controls, staring straight ahead. And if she had hidden in the deep shadows by the door, she might have heard him say, "Well, the three-dimensional projectors are back online," before burying his face in his hands.

Unfortunately, Roxanne does none of these things. She slams back into the miraculously still-waiting taxi, white-faced and trembling. The driver, who had been checking her cell phone, almost jumps out of her skin.

"Drive," Roxanne snaps.

The driver looks at her. Most of her fares don't sit in the front passenger seat, but she isn't about to tell Roxanne to move, not when she's looking like _that_. "Where to?"

"I don't _care_," Roxanne hisses, turning to look out the window. "I don't care, I don't care, I don't _care_, just take me somewhere that isn't _here_ and take me there _now_. Take me _home_. 674 River Street."

"Yes ma'am." And she pulls away from the curb with enough unsettled vigor that she leaves two black stripes on the pavement.

The screeching tires fit Roxanne's mood perfectly. _What on god's green earth…?_

A few seconds later, the older woman clears her throat. "So. You wanna talk about it?"

"_No_," Roxanne snaps, glaring out at the harbor without seeing anything, but continues without thinking. "I just walked in on my boyfriend making out with some…floozy."

The driver nods.

"And I'm just surprised, is all, because he _really_ isn't the type."

She grimaces, still nodding. "You know, that's what I thought about my ex-husband." She shrugs.

Roxanne glances at her, then away, and lets out a long, shuddering breath. "Yeah, I guess…I mean, I guess this sort of thing isn't really _unusual_. I just…"

"Never thought it'd happen to you?"

Roxanne forces a chuckle and shakes her head. "Yeah. At least not with this guy. He's _really not the type_."

"Yeah?" The other woman looks at her. "What type is he?"

"The blue type," Roxanne says without thinking, and something in the back of her mind registers that she sounds _really_ sarcastic.

"What?"

"Never mind. Just." She shakes her head and shuts her eyes. "You know what, let me out here. I'll walk home."

The driver runs a red light. "No way, not in this part of town. I'm taking you back to your place. And you are going to sit tight and think until you're thinking _clearly_."

Roxanne doesn't want to think; she wants to go tearing back to the lair and grab Megamind by the throat and shake him. He had _known_ she'd be coming by – if he had another girlfriend, why the _hell_ hadn't he made her leave?

That question brings her up short. _Why, indeed?_ Roxanne is pretty sure that "getting caught cheating" would be grounds for having a Mastermind License revoked, if such a thing existed. Besides, if anybody could hide an affair, it was Megamind. He wouldn't miss a thing. He was a terrible liar, but he wouldn't _have_ to lie, because he wouldn't get caught. He simply _wouldn't_.

And he may have been an Evil Overlord once upon a time, but Megamind has always had scruples. And he's always been respectful.

And where would he even _get_ another girlfriend? Roxanne has been wrong about guys before, but Megamind is pretty obvious – or so she had thought. She had _thought_ that the guilt of hiding something like that would make him _implode_. And it might be uncharitable, but Roxanne had thought that he wouldn't have the _guts_ to cheat on her.

This is so out of character for him that it borders on the truly insane, and Roxanne isn't buying it. Something else is going on, something she doesn't know about or overlooked or…

_The casualties aren't going to just stop now that I've switched sides. What happens when another villain shows up?_

_Minion, did you move the three-dimensional projectors?_

Roxanne blinks, dumbfounded. "You've gotta be kidding me," she mutters, and a weird sort of calm settles over her. She should have realized, should have heard what he wasn't saying, but she really hadn't thought Megamind was the sort of guy who would pull the _I'm-doing-it-to-protect-you_ card. "Goddamn it."

On one hand, she's relieved to know that he _probably_ isn't actually cheating on her. On the other hand…

Never mind what's on the other hand. The other hand is balled into a fist.


	6. Chapter 6

Things are moving right along! Here's chapter 6, in which there may or may not be foreshadowing, depending on your definition of foreshadowing. XD

Updates _may_ slow down a little bit soon – we're catching up on the buffer chapters and I'm going to be traveling day after tomorrow, so the next update will probably be Monday.

I send big hugs to you all. And cookies! There will always be cookies. ^^

Oh, and I don't own Megamind, and I don't own Batman either.

**Chapter 6**

The odd sense of calm wears off sometime between the time that the taxi pulls away and Roxanne gets inside her apartment building, because Marcos is kind of red and hazy around the edges. By the time Roxanne reaches her apartment, she's worked herself into a category-five _rage_.

She storms through her door and slams it behind her, throws her purse at the sofa. It lands with a disappointingly soft _pluth_.

There are. No. Words.

If there is one thing Roxanne cannot stand, it's people who make decisions based on what _they_ think is best for their significant others. Especially if they don't talk about it. _It's demeaning, and rude, and inconsiderate, and – _

– _And I've had _enough_ of people thinking I need protecting!_

Roxanne lets out a strangled scream of frustration, hoping it will make her feel better. It only makes her feel silly.

Desperately, she wonders if there's any way she could have misread the signs – maybe she's just jumping to conclusions? She knows she tends to do that more when she's stressed.

Her phone rings, and she picks up without thinking. _A distraction, yes, please, anything_.

"Roxanne, honey! How was your trip? I wanted to give you a day or so to settle back in before I called. Also, your cell phone is off, you might want to turn it on."

_Anything but that_.

"Hi Mom." She turns and sinks onto the sofa, only to leap up again with her teeth bared and snatch blindly for the purse she has just sat on. She stops herself just short of flinging it at the wall. It would accomplish nothing.

She forces herself to take a long, deep breath through her nose instead. "The trip was…the trip was good. I'm still really tired." She sits back down. Her purse slides through her fingers, forgotten. "Made the mistake of taking a nap when I got back."

There's a short pause. Then, "What's wrong?"

Roxanne sits up. "What? Nothing's wrong."

Linda Ritchi laughs. "I'm your mother, I can tell when something's wrong. What is it? Can I help?"

Somehow, Megamind has managed to render Roxanne hysterical twice in as many months. She has to try hard not to burst out laughing at her mother's offer. She can either laugh or cry, and she much prefers the former.

"I…I very much doubt it, Mom. But thanks."

"Change of subject?"

This time Roxanne does laugh, a little. "Please."

"How did you like getting away from the city for a change? Was it nice?"

Roxanne can picture her mother, up late at her house in California with a jar of nail polish in one hand and a pen in the other, grey hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her book of crossword puzzles is probably still lying on the arm of her chair, and there are probably at least three other similar books within a ten-foot radius. The sliding doors to the patio will be open, and all unnecessary lights turned off.

Things at home would be blissfully normal.

Roxanne bites her lip hard. Metro City is home and always has been, and she knows that, but moving back and forth between the two cities when she was a child left Roxanne with a less-than-healthy residual sense of home-is-where-I'm-_not_, especially when times are tough. And right now, she just wants to go home. And she wants a hug. Let it never be said that Roxanne Ritchi can't tough it out on her own, but sometimes even she needs a hug.

"It was really great. Amsterdam was _gorgeous_. And before you ask, yes, I brought back cheese, it's in my fridge, I'm mailing it to you soon." She rolls her eyes at her mother's happy exclamations, and tries not to remember that the cheese is, in fact, still wrapped in a bag in _Megamind's_ fridge.

They chat about nothing in general for a while, and Roxanne half-listens to her mother reminisce about the times she's gone abroad. But her mind is elsewhere.

Finally she can't stand it; she has to ask. "Mom, I've got a hypothetical question for you. Well. Not hypothetical." Because, in Roxanne's experience and probably her mother's as well, these sorts of hypothetical questions are _never_ hypothetical. "One of my friends is going through a rough patch with her guy-friend, and I could use some advice."

"Sure, honey. Shoot."

"She's found someone she thinks is a really great guy, but he has some skeletons in his closet. Maybe he's pissed off some important people, and maybe he's worried that some powerful people are going to come looking for a fight." Metro City is pretty big, and it has a strong criminal network. Linda knows that, so hopefully she won't ask any awkward questions. "I've met the guy, and I can vouch for his character. He's clean, now. But he…left my friend even though things were going really well, and we think it's because he wanted to keep her safe." At this point, it's fairly obvious to Roxanne that she wouldn't have seen anything if Megamind had not _wanted_ her to see it. "Is there any other reason he might have done it? At all?"

Linda is quiet for a little while. Finally she sighs. "Do you know anything about his family?"

"I know he's an orphan. Foster care didn't work out. He never really had a family."

"So he has nobody?"

Roxanne hesitates. How to describe Minion? "We-ell," she says slowly, drawing it out. "He has _a_ friend. They've known each other pretty much forever. It's kind of a…Batman and Alfred situation? Kind of?"

"Oh, Lord." Linda lets a long breath out into the phone. "He probably got into the bad business back when he was an angry teenager, am I right? He's got some trust issues, doesn't trust anyone but 'Alfred'? Sort of an 'everybody's left me' kind of thing?"

"That's pretty much it, yeah," Roxanne admits.

"Well," her mother begins, then stops, catches herself, "– who's the friend? Is it Jo?"

Roxanne fumbles. "It…sure is, yeah. How'd you know?" _Sorry, Jo_, she thinks guiltily, but she knows Jo will cover for her if she has to.

"Lucky guess." There's another brief pause. "Well, if it's Jo, she's well rid of this guy. She doesn't have the patience to deal with someone with his kind of mindset."

"But why would he do something like that without at least _talking_ to her?" Roxanne asks desperately. _That's_ the problem. _That's_ what's pissing her off.

"He might not trust her, although that depends on how well they know each other, and how _long_ they've known each other. But he sure as shooting doesn't trust himself. He's scared." Linda sounds a little like she's running down a list. "He's scared she'll get hurt, but he's scared if he tells her that she'll talk him out of separation. He's not sure if he wants to be with her or not, since trusting someone like that is a big step up from trusting _nobody_. He's also probably scared _of_ her, to a degree, and of what she can do to him. Chances are, he's not ready to deal with someone else having power over him, and he's taking the easy way out. Honey, I could be wrong, but that's my take."

_Some of that…might actually be true_. But she can still remember Megamind lying in the grass in the park, panicked and terrified but still _talking_ to her. She remembers being surprised, and impressed that he was forcing himself to stay still and talk it out.

"Roxanne?"

"I'm still here, Mom. Just…thinking." And she _is_ just thinking. Trying to make sense of it, but it _doesn't_ make sense.

"Well, honey, it's getting late here and you've got a lot on your mind." Her mother sighs. "Let Jo know I'm rooting for her, okay? She's a trooper, she'll be okay. And, Roxanne."

"Yes?"

"Are _you_ okay? It's almost a year since Wayne passed, but you haven't really said anything about it. And there was that Bernard thing – Andrew told me you separated." Linda is speaking quickly – she actually sounds kind of embarrassed. "I didn't want to say anything, since you didn't tell me, but…are you doing okay?"

Roxanne shoves herself into the corner of the sofa, folds her free arm across her chest, and glowers. "I'm doing _fine_, Mom."

"Okay, okay – I'm just _asking_. And everything's okay with…the city?"

Roxanne stiffens. "I thought you were going to bed."

"You're a very trusting person and I don't want you to get hurt. It might have fixed the damage, but that doesn't mean it isn't –"

Roxanne can feel the blood drain from her face, then come rushing back. "Mother, I will not discuss this right now. I am angry and worried and tired and _not in the mood_, and if you try to argue with me I _will_ hang up on you."

Her mother sighs. "All right, Roxanne. I love you."

"Love you too. Goodnight."

Roxanne hangs up, then tosses the phone to the other end of the sofa and glares at it.

The issue hasn't been dropped. She and her mother have been arguing for almost a year – longer, really, although it's really intensified over the past month or so – and have gotten nowhere. _I'm just glad Megamind never found out_, she thinks, and then she can't hold it in anymore. She brings her legs up to her chest, wraps her arms around them, and puts her head down on her knees and cries.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

_As with any large machine, this one will take time to reach full power._

_If his calculations are correct – and they _are_ correct – it should take fourteen hours to reach capacity. The current is strong, but it starts out weak, that's the key, that's what will keep it from overloading. _

_He grins, and sets his watch_.

_13:59_.


	7. Chapter 7

Hey all! A longer chapter, with a lot going on. Also, I apologize for the delay – the internet crapped out. But we're back in business now, as they say, so onward to chapter 7, in which everyone is very, _very_ confused!

I OWN NOTHING (well, the cabbie is mine, but that's all). Don't sue me.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 7<strong>

Megamind has been _quiet_ all morning, which is unusual, but Minion figures he might just be tired. He was up later than usual last night, and he's had another early-morning meeting with the city officials about the Metro Tower rebuild – he always comes back from those with several hundred new problems tumbling through his mind, and the businessmen render him numb and unhappy.

"People's lives are just _numbers_ to them," he had said one night recently. "Dollar figures. Minion, I don't _understand_ it," and then he had wandered off and sat staring into a viewfinder Minion hadn't seen before for the rest of the night.

Lord knows _what_ he had been looking at. He'd fallen asleep there, eyes pressed against the repurposed binocular goggles, until Minion had very gently settled him back in his chair and taken a peek through the scope. All he'd seen were a bunch of stars – not even anything special, as far as he could tell. But they have to mean _something_, because that viewfinder has been appearing more and more recently. It's out this morning; Megamind fell asleep stargazing and now there are marks in the blue skin around his eyes – deep indents like parentheses that are highlighted by the tired shadows under his eyes. He looks awful.

Minion, who was shocked almost speechless by his master's disheveled appearance, is almost defiantly cheerful over breakfast. Megamind refuses his coffee outright, and that's when Minion starts cracking jokes until finally one of them gets a smile, and then he hides half a caffeine tablet in Megamind's jelly doughnut and soon all is right with the world again.

Until, very suddenly, it isn't.

Megamind, who has finished breakfast and made it halfway to the kitchen door, whirls when he hears Minion gag. He's at Minion's side almost immediately – perched on the shoulder of the gorilla suit and unscrewing the dome with deft hands. "What is it, which one, can you tell?" He swiftly upends the tank so no water is lost; there's a selectively permeable membrane on the bottom to keep it from leaking but it won't hold up the weight of the water. Minion is jostled a bit, but it's better than having to breathe air, especially when he's like this.

Minion groans and shakes his head. "Gimme a second – it's _jangling_, it's weird."

Megamind bites his lip. If one of the reactors is bad, Minion would be the first to know – he resonates to their hum. "It _is_ one of the reactors, though, right?"

"It – yes." Minion nods weakly, gags again. "Agh, _ow_. Yes. It'll be the cold fusion. It's out of whack, it's like there's a _third_ note and it's gone all _dissonant_…usually it's a perfect fifth, but it's like it's been augmented or something."

Megamind's eyebrows shoot up. A _third_ note?

"Hang on," he tells Minion, and jumps from the gorilla suit to the kitchen counter to his chair to the floor. Ordinarily he would have simply hopped down, but that would have hurt Minion, and Megamind _will not_ hurt Minion. "I'll change your water and then I'll run and look."

But Minion shakes his head. "No time," he manages, and then he throws up. Megamind winces. Nobody likes being sick, but for Minion it's worse because he has to _breathe_ that water.

"Okay, all right," Megamind says brusquely, no-nonsense. There will be time to freak out later. "Pool?"

Minion is quite literally green around the gills, and doesn't say anything. He can't. If he opens his mouth…

Megamind nods once, decisive. "Pool," he mutters, answering his own question, and breaks into a run, heart hammering triple beats (thd-d-_doom_ thd-d-_doom_ thd-d-_doom_) behind his ribcage. Minion is throwing up again.

This sort of thing has happened only once before, years ago, back before Megamind had realized just how scarce muons really were and moved his traps to low Earth orbit. After that, he and Minion had run a series of tests to see how the fish would respond to different malfunctions with the generators. At best, Minion had felt mildly nauseated; at worst, he had screamed himself hoarse until his eyes had rolled back in his head and he'd become unresponsive. Megamind had wanted to stop testing after that, but Minion had insisted they continue until they'd tried everything that could possibly go wrong.

But _this_ response isn't on any of Megamind's lists, which means it's something new, something neither he nor Minion had thought of. And that thought – the thought that he overlooked something that is now causing Minion to shake and vomit – scares Megamind worse than almost anything else can.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Roxanne is getting out of the shower when it happens. Her stomach lifts, churns, turns over, and up comes breakfast. There is no warning. She goes from being completely fine to doubled-over and heaving in under two seconds.

She hiccups, gulps, staggers to her toilet and falls to her knees, retches again.

It isn't food poisoning. She _knows_ it isn't food poisoning. She isn't sure how she knows it, but she does, the same as she knows the sky is blue and water is wet. It's just something that is true. And the little voice in the back of her mind that is her intuition is screaming at her, and it's screaming one very coherent message:

_Get To Minion_.

She grabs her phone – even with last night's meltdown, she had remembered to plug it in – and ignores the two new voicemails in favor of speed-dial.

"Pick up, pick up, pick up." She chants it through clenched teeth, her eyes watering as the phone rings. She'd planned on waiting a day or two before heading back to the lair to have a Talk with Megamind, but it looks like there's been a change of plans.

"_Hi, you've reached Jocelyn Andrada's cell, I can't come to the phone right now but if you'll leave me a detailed message and a call-back number I'll _–_"_

Roxanne hangs up, swearing and scared (and also slightly irritated because how, _how_ is she supposed to get dressed when she's like this? and come on, she _just_ brushed her teeth), and dials Akos' number. She hadn't meant to take him up on his offer of on-call service, but she really doesn't have much of a choice.

He picks up after the first ring. "Yello."

"Akos, help," and that's all she can get out before she's bent double again with her face in the toilet. Really, this is getting _ridiculous_. There's nothing left to get rid of! "Help it's Roxanne and I need to get to the warehouse _now_."

"Fifteen – _yeah, same to you, asshole!_" There's a squeal, followed by some distant honking that Roxanne might have found funny another day. "Sorry. Fifteen minutes."

"_Hurry_," she gasps, and stumbles off in search of clothes. The floor falls away from her, rolling like the deck of a ship.

Five minutes later she has come to the conclusion that sweatpants are God, and that her shirt can go fuck itself because she is _not_ _bothering_ – getting into underwear was hard enough, and it's a chilly morning and Roxanne is not going to deal with more than one set of sleeves right now. She crawls into a hoodie and that's going to have to be good enough.

That done, she makes her way to the kitchen and retrieves plastic bags and stuffs them in her hoodie pocket before staggering to the door, pausing on the way to grab her cell phone and purse.

Ordinarily, Roxanne is okay with taking the stairs, but today she pushes the elevator button repeatedly, taking some small comfort in its persistent clicking. _Minion, _what _is going on?_ she wonders, and curls over one of the bags, hacking, but nothing comes up.

But it does get her thinking. Why is she so bent on getting to _Minion_, of all people?

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

"Almost there, hang on, we're almost there, okay?" Megamind scrambles around a corner and down yet another flight of stairs – _Why_ is Minion's pool so far away from the kitchen? And why isn't there some sort of elevator or transportation device? Poor design planning on _somebody's_ part. Another day he might have made some sort of joke, but today he just shrugs it off as another failure. _Add it to the pile_.

"With you all the way, Sir." Minion coughs, gags, dry heaves. "Ow. I'm broadcasting, Sir; once I'm out of the water you should be able to feel some of this. See what – see what you make of it." His voice trails off at the end. If Megamind weren't running, he'd have gone weak at the knees. Minion has _never_ been like this.

"Okay, Minion, okay. Shut up, okay?"

There, there's the pool ahead, and Megamind skids into the room and flings himself onto his knees at the water's edge, punches through the membrane on Minion's dome and curls both hands under the boxy body, carefully lifts his friend free of the tank.

His stomach roils almost immediately, but he grits his teeth and holds onto Minion just long enough to get a feel for the sensation before he drops the fish into the pool. Minion sinks to the bottom, where he rests on the sand between a fan coral and a rather startled starfish and blinks miserably up at his friend.

Megamind put him in the shallow end – three or four feet of water, warmer at this end than at the other, which is twenty feet deep and cool – in case he has to get in with the fish later. He can swim better than most humans, but he'd rather not have to if Minion is sick. Scuba gear is just so _impersonal_.

He swallows hard, then reaches into the water and places a transmitter at Minion's side. "I'm going to check out the reactors, run some diagnostics. I'll be back. If anything changes, if you need me, the button is right by your fin."

Minion rolls an eye downwards and nods. The green light on the transmitter shines reassuringly up through the water.

"Back soon," Megamind promises, then gets to his feet and flees.

_Oh, God, what is it, what did I miss?_ He runs headlong into the controls without bothering to slow down, then pushes himself back a step and sends his hands flying over the keys while he scans the output desperately for any sign of trouble. "Nibs!" he cries over his shoulder. "Nibs, Liam, Ort!" Minion is definitely nauseated so the problem _has_ to be with the cold fusion reactor, it has to be; that's the one that makes Minion _sick_, the muon reactor just makes him _hurt_ –

He strikes blindly out at the screen, nerves ragged. Why is his best friend the damn canary? _Why does it have to be Minion, why can't it be me, not Minion, not Minion, not Minion_ –

Behind him, brainbots cluster and whirl and three drift forward, _thaum_ing and waiting for instructions.

"Ort, I need you to check on the muon reactor, nothing should be wrong but it doesn't hurt to check. Take some of the others with you. Liam, Nibs," he snaps as Ort zooms away with a small fleet of other brainbots, "you're amphibious, you check the cold fusion reactor. Remember to wear protective gear. Report back to me, here, in five minutes. If I'm not here, I'll be down in the pool room, with Minion."

He only vaguely registers them leaving; his mind is racing.

What did he miss? What _is_ it? Minion had said it sounded like a _third_ frequency had joined the other two, but Megamind can't think of anything that would cause that. Unless it's another reactor, but let's face it, that's just ridiculous. Who the hell would build a cold fusion reactor in Metro City?

"…_Not sure why the scientific community hasn't looked further into cold fusion before… Obviously, it isn't the impossibility they all think it is…"_

Who, indeed.

His fingers stutter on the keys as his eyes go wide, and he slides the second keyboard out from under the first. He'll have to work his hands double fast, running two searches at once, but it's necessary. His hands lift, and he makes them dance.

Nibs is back, plugging into the control station next to the one Megamind is currently overclocking.

_Brainbot Model 6.3, Designation: 77_

_Serial No. 236AR904D_

_Alternate: "_Nibs"_

_Firmware update 07 .14 .2011_

_Software update 07 .14 .2011_

_Hardware update 07 .14 .2011_

_Input: _DIAGNOSTIC_REQUEST_

_InputSource: =Daddy_

_Output: "_all .quiet .on .the .western .front"_

Megamind doesn't even look up; the computer translates Nibs' output to a synthesized voice. It's a new upgrade; the newer brainbots don't even need the computer. "That was fast."

_Input: _SKEPTICISM_

_InputSource: =Daddy_

_Output: "_we .are .certain .previous .output .is .correct"_

_Tone: offense_

Megamind nods shortly and continues scanning the output readings, looking for something, anything that would prove Nibs wrong. The background check on Robert Anderson hums along two consoles over.

_Output: "_ahem"_

_Tone: worried_

Megamind glares. "_What_, Nibs."

_Output: "_902TY138F_ .reports .reactor .activity_12.2124632_km_ .north .of .current .location."_

_Tone: hesitant_

Megamind spins. "There's _another reactor?_" Nibs whirs and clicks as Ort comes whizzing back. The second brainbot says something synthesized about the muon reactor being completely fine, but Megamind holds up a hand. "Nibs?"

_Output: "_not .to .put .too .fine .a .point .on .it"_

_Output: _PAUSE_FOR_EMPHASIS_

_Output: "_yes"_

_Tone: apologetic_

"God _DAMN_ _it!_" Megamind shrieks, and runs.

He does not look at the background check. If he had, he would have seen that no one by the name of Robert Anderson works or has ever worked for Metro University.

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Roxanne has had just about enough weirdness to last her a lifetime, but right now, she's just glad Megamind hasn't pulled her fingerprints from the lair's systems, so she can still get in.

Akos glances over his shoulder as if he expects a police car to pull around any minute. "Miss Ritchi…" he says nervously, "we're gonna get in trouble…"

"Trouble can kiss my sweet ass," she rasps, and just about falls on her face when the hidden door slides open, but Akos catches her. "Thanks. This way."

Eyes huge, he supports her as she staggers down a long, narrow hall, making twists and turns that seem to be totally random. All the halls are narrow, and fairly well-lit by white hanging globes. "What _is_ this place?"

Roxanne doesn't bother answering. Minion is very, very close, but the sick feeling is muted now, somehow. She just hopes they don't run into –

A streak of blue and black flashes across the hall in front of them, yelling something incoherent at the top if its lungs, and Roxanne winces. Akos stops dead. "The hell was that?"

Roxanne wants to turn and leave, but that little voice is still chanting insistently that she needs to _Get To Minion, Get To Minion_. She presses on, ignoring Akos' questions, and eventually he falls blissfully silent. Roxanne is glad of small comforts; she is beginning to get a headache. Megamind seems to have a fondness for spiral staircases, and vertigo and spiral stairs don't mix well.

Slowly, she makes her way to where Megamind had run past, and turns, only to find yet _another_ flight of stairs. She groans.

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"…Stupid, idiot, _brainless_ bag of meat and blood and carbon, I've had it up to _here_ with humans thinking they have _all the answers_, didn't we make it _clear_ that cold fusion was a useless pursuit… waste of perfectly good air, he's got less sense than a box of rocks…" He bursts back into the underground pool room at full speed and falls to the floor at the edge of the pool with enough force to bruise his knees and crack the tile. "Minion?"

Minion opens his eyes and looks up at him. "Sir?"

Megamind smiles down at his friend in what he hopes is a reassuring manner, but from the way Minion looks alarmed, it probably isn't. "I found the problem, Minion. Some idiot built a reactor."

"Some idiot built _two_ reactors," Minion wheezes, and it actually takes Megamind a moment or two to get that he's trying to joke.

He snorts. "Hah. Listen, I—"

"_Minion!_"

Minion's eyes open wide and Megamind lets out a startled yell and spins around on his knees, overbalances, flails, and falls into the pool with a tremendous splash. He doesn't fall on Minion, but he _does_ find a sea urchin.

"_OW_," he says, very clearly, and is halfway up and onto dry land before he really knows what's happening. He says some other things as well, most of them rude.

Minion rises about a foot in the water. "Miss Ritchi?" he exclaims, bewildered.

Roxanne starts to answer, then bends over, retching horribly. Megamind goes white. First Minion, and now Roxanne? But why would Roxanne be sick?

Then he's on his feet and next to her, one hand under her chin, the other pressed to her forehead. "No fever," he says, relieved, but that relief is short-lived when she slaps him smartly across the face.

"Don't," she mutters, glaring out of watering eyes, "don't _touch_ me, you…you _obnoxious_…don't _like_ you," and it's true. She doesn't like him very much at the moment. She still loves him, but she doesn't like him. It's a confusing distinction, but it's there.

"Wait," says a voice, and an older man with greying hair appears suddenly on Roxanne's other side and pulls her away from Megamind, who is so surprised that he actually lets her go. "You're him, aren't you? You're Megamind."

Once upon a time, Megamind might have said something like, _the one and only_, or maybe, _that's sort of a stupid question, isn't it?_

But now, all he says is, "Yeah, that's me. Roxanne, what are you _doing_ here?"

She's been pulling insistently at the strange man. "I'm _trying_," she snarls, abruptly lucid, and Megamind recoils, "to get to _Minion_. Akos, let me go."

He obeys, although he looks like he has some serious misgivings about doing so.

As it turns out, those misgivings were spot on, because Roxanne takes three enormous, staggering steps, and goes straight into the deep end of the pool before either of the other two can react.

Megamind is after her in a heartbeat, tearing out of his dripping cape and diving in without a second thought. Roxanne is already clawing around in a general surface-ward direction, but her eyes are squeezed closed against the salt water and when Megamind grabs her under the arms and locks her close against his chest in a lifeguard's hold, she gasps and chokes on salt water.

Eyes stinging, lungs burning, she breaks the surface and flails. Ordinarily she is a fairly strong swimmer, but she is sick and disoriented and _now_ she's panicking.

Megamind's voice in her ear shocks her like electricity and she stills. "Easy," he hums. "Easy. I got you. You're okay. You're fine. Everything's fine, you hear me?"

Roxanne chokes, coughs, gags a little, and nods.

"Why'd you grab me," is the first thing out of her mouth. "I had it under control."

"Liar," he says, and swims her into the shallows until she can stand, then releases her carefully, turning her around so she faces him. She doesn't look as pale as she did, and her eyes are clearer. As far as he can tell, she's focusing just fine.

"Listen, I need to go take care of what's making Minion sick, but if you're here to see _him_ I won't stop you. Just be _careful_, okay? Try not to touch anything on the reef. Some of it's poisonous, some of it's venomous, either way I don't want to come home and find you foaming at the mouth or dead or something."

"Reef?" She looks around, gapes at the colorful coral and anemones. "Reef," she breathes, and nods. "Okay. I'll be careful."

"You're sure you'll be all right?"

She looks around at Megamind, who is still holding her by the arms, standing waist-deep in the pool with water beading on his suit and trickling down his worried face.

She blinks, and it's like flipping a switch – Megamind's expression goes completely flat and he lets go of her arms. Then he turns away, sloshing to the low stairs in one corner and exiting the pool without looking back.

"You, Akos," he says, and the other man jumps and looks around at him. "Stay with them until I get back. Don't wander off. I need to…take care of a _friend_." He picks up his cape and leaves, walking with an oddly precise, clipped gait that Roxanne doesn't recognize.

She puzzles over that for a moment, then realizes with a start that she feels completely fine, now. When she was a child, she'd had problems with car-sickness – she'd feel incredibly ill in the family station wagon, but as soon as the vehicle stopped and she got out she would be fine. The way she feels now is exactly the same as she used to feel years ago when she stepped out of the car – all right, but _searching_, as if her body itself were wondering why. _Weird_.

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_It's on, it's charged, it's _working_ – of course it's working, he knew it would. There's no reason for it _not_ to work. He knows his calculations are correct._

_He hadn't expected the core to be quite that shade of orange, but he'll take what he can get. The output readings are all positive, except for a few glitches which will probably work themselves out. _

_Life, today, is good. And tomorrow, when the reactor is performing at capacity and glowing blue-white the way it should be, he will call a press conference, and soon his name will be in headlines all over the world, and life will be even better. That's worth a few favors, a few bills of sale, a lost job. More than worth it. The university is going to be sorry they let him go._

"_Victory is mine," he says quietly, and shivers. He's always wanted to say that, and the way his words echo around the stage and the huge, empty room is positively delicious_.


	8. Chapter 8

Bwhahahaa, you guys. You guys, we may be going back to chapter-a-day updates soon. Possibly not tomorrow, but soon.

You all are seriously amazing. I keep saying that, but it is true. So much love for all of you. Holy moly.

In which there are some explanations, some speculations, some evil outfits, and some steel-toed boots.

**Chapter 8**

Akos crosses carefully to the edge of the pool and looks in. "Pool" is a bit of an understatement; it's more like a very large pond or a very small indoor lake, which explains why he and Roxanne had to go down so many stairs to reach it. It's underground. Deep and wide and easily fifty yards from end to end, there are shallow steps leading down into the far end where Roxanne is, and the walls of the pool are very steeply sloped rather than going straight down.

There is a full-scale coral reef in there, complete with brightly-colored coral and fish and waving plants.

He raises his voice, and is totally unsurprised to discover that it shakes slightly. "H-how deep is this?"

He doesn't get an answer. Roxanne is alternating talking to the pool in a low, urgent voice and dipping one side of her head in. Akos backs away from the water and moves closer to Roxanne's end of the pool, which – hooray – looks a lot shallower and therefore a lot safer.

"I just don't _get_ it," Roxanne is saying. "There's no reason I should be able to receive some…I don't know, some hormonal message from you halfway across the city, and you in a tank of water!"

Minion shrugs wearily. "I don't know either. Sir will probably be able to explain it when he gets back."

Roxanne can think of several ways to reply to that. Finally she goes with the simplest, which is, "I don't know that I want be here when he does."

"Why _not?_" Minion stares up at her, obviously surprised, and Roxanne realizes with a kind of shock that he doesn't know what happened.

Well, there's nothing else for it. She takes a deep breath. "You're – not going to believe this, but when I came to the lair last night Megamind was making out with another girl."

Minion blinks, opens his mouth, closes it, and blinks again. "You're right," he says after a moment of stunned silence. "I _don't_ believe it. He _wouldn't_."

"That was what _I_ thought!" Roxanne shakes her head. "Minion, you know him best. Why would he do that? And why would he let me _see?_ Is he trying to keep me safe, or something? Make me leave him so that I don't get caught in the crossfire? He said some things to me after lunch a couple days ago, and I thought…I don't know what I thought."

"Well this explains why he was so _off_ today," Minion mutters, and frowns for a moment. Eventually he looks back up at Roxanne. "Miss Ritchi, he hasn't been thinking clearly lately. All these meetings and public appearances have been doing a real number on his systems, and his judgment is…well, it's never been _great_, but he's second-guessing _everything_ right now. And on top of that, there's no stability, no routine. Everything is just so _weird_. For both of us, really."

Roxanne scowls and opens her mouth, but Minion fans his fins and his ridges light up, and she stops.

"I'm not trying to make excuses," he says quickly. "It's just… it's like he's stuck watching himself. Nothing comes naturally; he has to think about every move. What exactly did he say to you?"

Quickly, Roxanne tells him about the last time she and Megamind spoke. Minion looks unsurprised. "Miss Ritchi, he's not really worried about what would happen if another villain showed up. Trust me. He and I _both_ know you can handle yourself – we've known that for _years_."

"Yes, but…"

"Question for you. Might make more sense to you than me, I don't know." Minion looks hesitant, but forges ahead anyway. "Do you know why he would go and visit our old school?"

Roxanne freezes, her train of thought totally derailed. "What?"

Minion nods. "He was really weird after he came back and you left – threw himself into a random project like I haven't seen him do in ages. I tracked his movements just prior to that, and he had gone to the old schoolhouse and stayed there for about half an hour before coming back to the lair."

Roxanne stares down at him, then scrabbles in her hoodie pocket for her cell phone, which, thankfully, is water-resistant. The two new voicemails glare accusingly up at her.

"Miss Ritchi?"

"Hang on, Minion, I just – I need to check something." Because if Megamind went and visited Wayne and Wayne didn't try to warn her about it, Roxanne _will_ find a way past his invulnerability and strangle him.

And, lo and behold, the voicemails are from Mom and WS. The one from WS was delayed by a few hours. _Figures_. She needs an upgrade on her phone.

Muttering threats under her breath, she calls her voicemail.

_You have two unheard messages. First unheard message:_

_Hey, Roxie, it's…me. Sorry to call out of nowhere like this, but your boyfriend… is he your boyfriend? If so, it's about time you found somebody, good for you… Anyway, Blue was just here. I think he's going to try something and I think it's going to be loads of stupid, but he said…it was weird and kind of convoluted, he was sort of babbling for a while there but I think_ _he's gonna try to make you hate him, or something? I dunno. Sounded to me like he's just scared you'll throw everything in his face and take off, and he figured he'd beat you to it, save you the trouble. Load of crap if you ask me. Or maybe it isn't. Everything else has kinda exploded on him, you know? Shit keeps hitting his fan. Can't really blame him. (_There's a pause._) I dunno. I still think it's crap._

_Good luck knocking some sense into him, but… (_something that sounds like a sigh_)…look, just be careful, okay? I don't know what's got him so up-cited, but I haven't seen him this frantic since grade school. Just don't yell. He hates yelling. Dunno if you've noticed that. Anyway, I'll leave the details up to you, just wanted to…you know, call and give you a heads-up. You should come hang soon, catch up a bit. Both of you. Sounds weird, but I kinda miss the little guy. Say hey to the fish for me, would you?_

_Next unheard message:_

Roxanne deletes the message from Mom without listening to it and closes her phone, trying to decide how she feels about this new development. On one hand, it could mean that Megamind doesn't _really_ think she needs protecting and therefore wasn't leaving her for her own good. If that's the case, she's not half as mad at him as she was.

Well, that's not really true. She's still just as angry, but for a different reason: it's her standard reaction to blatant stupidity. Wayne is right, she _can't_ blame Megamind for being scared and insecure – a lifetime of conditioning can't just be ignored – but that doesn't mean Roxanne should have to put up with any more harebrained schemes.

They can work through it, though, she's _sure_ they can. It'll take time, but Roxanne suspects Megamind is just as stubborn as she is, in his way. From what she's seen, Megamind clings to his ideas with a silent steadfastness that would make any barnacle proud – all Roxanne needs to do is convince him to cling to the idea that she _won't_ just up and leave him at the drop of a hat.

"Well," she says after a few quiet seconds tick by, "it sounds like he's gone further off the deep end than I thought."

"And?" Minion dances a little in the water, impatient. "What happened? Who called you? What did Sir go do?"

Roxanne looks down and smiles. "He went and talked to an old friend."

"A friend?" Minion sounds dubious. "We don't _have_ friends."

Roxanne shrugs. "An old enemy, then. It isn't important. I think he probably just needed to get out for a bit." And then, to change the subject, "Minion, why are we both okay now?"

"Could be a defense mechanism, I think," the fish tells her after a moment. He sends her a look that says he knows exactly what she's doing. "Endorphins. Also the acoustics in here throw off the humming, so it's just white noise. I'm no longer resonating to it – I'm not affected by it, so if I'm right and you've somehow bonded to me, the way Sir has, neither are you." He pauses. "_Goodness_, that sounds weird."

Roxanne wades to the steps and sits down, wrapping her arms around her chest. The water is warm, but the air in the lair is as cool as it always is and she's beginning to shiver. "About that. I don't think I can have done."

"Why not?"

She shrugs. "Well, think about it. Megamind only felt it when he got you out of the water, when he touched you, probably because whatever chemicals your body was producing were blocked by the water and the glass tank – like he said, it's not a _mental_ link, it's biochemical. How could I feel, immediately, the same thing you were feeling if I was halfway across town? Heck, I can't even _hear_ you if I don't have an ear in the water." She shakes her head. "Also, I'm sorry, but you're an alien fish. It's just not _possible_."

Minion looks mildly offended for a second, then nods. "Okay. Granted. But you feel fine now, and I feel fine now, and we got sick at the same time, so _something_ has to be going on there." He blinks up at her, concerned. "Also, you should probably get out of the pool. You look cold."

"I _am_ cold, but the water's warmer than the air and –"

"Blankets!" Akos announces loudly, reentering the room with his arms full of them, and Roxanne jumps. She hadn't seen him leave. "Blankets and _who are you talking to?_"

Roxanne points at the water. "Minion. You know, Megamind's friend. He's a fish, wears a gorilla suit?"

Akos shakes his head. "I try to stay out of the way of the superhero-supervillain stuff. Now get out of the water before you catch your death or drown or something."

"_Thank you_," Minion mutters. "Honestly, what _is_ it with bipeds and refusing to listen to me?"

Roxanne obeys, wrapping one of the blankets around her and huddling gratefully into it. Then an idea strikes and she steps back over to the pool. "Minion, I want to try something and I want to get into dry clothes and I _think_ I can do both at the same time. I'm going to leave Akos with you for a few minutes, okay?"

Minion frowns a little, but nods.

Roxanne turns to the cabbie. "Akos, just…stay here? I'll be back really soon. If I get sick again, then Minion is right and I'll just come back in here."

Akos shrugs and nods. "I got nothing better to do, sure."

Roxanne nods her thanks and jogs towards the door. The room _might_ be the only thing blocking the sick feeling, but she doesn't think it is, and once she's in the hallway she stops and waits for a few seconds.

Nothing happens.

_So I'm not bound to Minion_, Roxanne thinks. She has a theory about that – it might be the something similar to what Megamind had said about growing attuned to other people's chemical signatures. Her body is tuning itself to both Megamind _and_ Minion, aligning on some level with their bodies, but it isn't strong enough yet to be consistent. Or she doesn't feel sick now because her body is defending itself and turning against the offending frequency. Or both.

She could be completely mistaken, but it's the best guess she can come up with.

She grins and hurries back along the maze of hallways to Megamind's bedroom. There's a small box of her clothing by the door, and it doesn't take too long to find a pair of black yoga pants and a dry shirt.

She also finds the fancy dressing gown she'd bought and stored under the bed so she wouldn't have to keep borrowing Megamind's bathrobes and capes. The lair is _cold_, and the dressing gown is one Roxanne had thought he would approve of – black satiny polyester with blue collar and lining, full-length, with a blue sash that loops twice around her waist and has tassels on the ends. There are actually hidden fasteners up the front. Roxanne is pretty sure that it's meant to be some kind of slinky dress, but she's also pretty sure that she'd never wear it in public, ever.

But the flowing sleeves are long, and it's warmer than nothing, and she has to admit that it fits perfectly with the lair even if the blue is paler than the stuff Megamind usually wears. She puts it on over the yoga pants. What the hell, why not? It makes her feel evil. It's not a _bad_ feeling.

She looks in the mirror and grins. "Raargh," she says to her reflection, holding up hands with fingers bent like claws, and then bursts out laughing.

She is still grinning when she re-enters the pool room and finds Akos and Minion in a heated debate about – various kinds of cooking oil, it sounds like. Akos is lying on the floor with his ear in the water, both hands white-knuckled on the side of the pool.

She decides not to ask.

"Minion, I have a question," she calls, going back over to the pool. Akos looks up at her and raises his eyebrows, but says nothing about her outfit. "Where did Megamind actually _go?_"

"Assuming he has the watch or the car, you could look him up on console 4 upstairs," Minion replies. "I think he was being sarcastic about the 'friend,' though. And please tell _your_ friend here that peanut oil is best for deep frying. He keeps going on about bacon fat."

"Don't ask me about frying. I burn salads," Roxanne says. "I would have thought he would go and fix the reactors, first." She pulls out her phone. _mom – which is better 4 deep frying, Pnut oil or bacon grease?_

Minion looks troubled. "About that," he says slowly. "He and I discovered ages ago that if something goes wrong with the muon reactor, I feel pain all up and down my spines. It's the cold fusion reactor that makes me sick. But we tested everything that could possibly go wrong, and it's _never_ felt like that before."

Roxanne blinks and sits down on the floor, cross-legged. "What's it feel like?" Her phone beeps twice. _both. mostly pnut, add 1/3 or 1/4 bacon 4 flavor. bacons like lard, lots of flavor, but has low burn and smoke point. pnut holds up better 4 deepfry. plz dont hurt urself_.

She grins and shows the phone to Akos, who looks at it and grimaces.

"It felt like there was a third note in with the other two." Minion shakes his head. "But that doesn't make any sense. That's where I keep getting stuck, because the only thing that would do that is if there was a third reactor. And that's impossible; Sir is the only one who knows how to do cold fusion so that it's actually feasible."

Roxanne looks up, paling. _No_, she thinks, because it can't be, not really. Not _seriously_.

Can it?

"A third reactor?" she repeats faintly. "A cold fusion reactor?"

"It would have to be, I think. But it's all wrong. It feels weird. Jangly. Like hitting your funny bone," Minion tells her, then adds, "not that I would know."

_Anderson_. "That complete and utter _toad_," Roxanne whispers, shocked. "He built a reactor. He actually _built_ one."

"What?" Minion asks, just as Akos says, "Who?"

Roxanne answers neither question. She's thinking. Distantly, she registers that Akos and Minion have resumed their discussion.

Anderson built a reactor, and Megamind went to go shut it down. But Roxanne very seriously doubts that Megamind did the same digging into Anderson's background that she did. And if that's true, and he doesn't know who he's _really_ dealing with…

"Minion," she says quietly, and something in her voice brings both of her companions up short. "How often has Megamind fought the forces of good without you backing him up? I mean how often has he fought alone?"

"I don't know, a couple of times?" Minion says. "Two, maybe three."

Roxanne rises, feeling more than a little bit shaky. "If I take you out of this room, will you get sick again?"

"Almost definitely. Sorry."

She rubs a hand over her eyes, unable to believe what she is about to do. "Brilliant," she mutters. "Splendid. Okay. You have to stay here, then." She chews her lip, trying to remember all the rejected contraptions and inventions Minion had shown her. "I need to go."

She turns towards the door, then back to the pool. "Akos. I'm sorry, but I'm going to need your help again."

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It's only after Megamind has broken into the abandoned waterfront theater that he realizes he has no idea what he's doing. Breaking and entering? Smooth sailing. Taking down a cold fusion reactor and the misguided professor who created it? Should be simple.

Taking down the misguided professor who created it _without hurting him?_ That one is going to be a little more difficult. Also, he left without the de-gun, which he _really_ shouldn't have done, but he had been in a hurry. He doesn't wear it around the lair, and Roxanne's sudden alarming appearance had thrown him for a loop, and he'd pulled out of the lair with little more than what was already in the invisible car.

But Dr. Anderson isn't _insane_, right? This shouldn't be too hard, right? He's just a villain, and Megamind knows villainy like the back of his hand. This should be cake.

But a villain would say something like, "You should have been here _hours_ ago, I've been _waiting_," or, "You've fallen into my trap!" upon the arrival of the hero. Not, "What the _fuck_," which is what Anderson says when Megamind steps to the edge of the balcony and looks down.

And it isn't fair, really. In these sorts of situations, the hero is supposed to speak first and take the villain by surprise. Anderson isn't playing by the rules.

But the rules don't matter anymore, when Megamind sees what's on the stage of the old theater, burning like a very small sun in the middle of a sphere that _really_ shouldn't be transparent. And what Megamind says is, "Anderson, what have you _done?_"

"Thought you were a genius," the man sneers.

"Look, that's just how it's supposed to go," Megamind snaps defensively. "I ask what you've done, you reveal your cunning plan, I haul you off to jail." But he's got a sneaking suspicion that Anderson, like Hal, _really_ doesn't care how it's supposed to go. He decides to forgo the usual procedure. "Listen, Professor, you've got to shut it off. It's all wrong."

"And I suppose you know how to fix it?" Anderson's lip curls and he shakes his head. "Please. This is going to save the city _millions_ in energy bills."

"Oh _really_," Megamind says, using the driest voice he can manage. "Is that before or after it costs the city billions in _repairs_ bills?" He shakes his head. "You know, there won't even _be_ a city in…I give it a week, tops. I cannot _believe_ you built that thing on land. Shut it _off_."

"Nothing doing."

"Don't make me come down there," Megamind warns, careful not to sound too desperate.

Anderson puts his hands behind his back like a first-class lecturer, paces across the stage. "You know, I _thought_ you might turn up," he muses. "You were the one who told that reporter girl to ask those questions at the end of the interview, weren't you? They cut my funding, thanks to you. I've just been laid off."

"Really," Megamind says again. "How did you pay to build this reactor, then?"

"Sold my father's yacht." Anderson shrugs. "He never used it anyway."

There are entirely too many shades of grey here for Megamind's liking. Anderson has probably spent his last cent building a machine that he hopes will save electricity bills the world over, someday. He's trying to do _good_.

_What does that make me?_

"Look, I respect ingenuity," Megamind tells him, "but you really need to shut it off. Now, before it gets any hotter. It's all _wrong_."

He had thought to ask about funding, but not, regrettably, about how Anderson had actually managed to construct his machine. It had taken Megamind half a year and several hundred brainbots to build his. One man, working alone, cannot build and maintain a reactor.

This is the thought that occurs to Megamind when Anderson's grey gaze flicks to a point just _behind_ him, just before something heavy smashes into the back of his head. Stars burst behind his eyes and he staggers, catching the railing just in time to keep from tumbling off the balcony.

He braces himself against it, tries to stay standing, but he can't keep his feet – the room tilts abruptly and he pitches sideways and has to sit down hard with his back to the railing, still struggling not to lose consciousness. His vision is foggy and whirling and he can't focus, but he can just make out a large, dark shape standing over him.

The large, dark shape is wearing steel-toed boots. Megamind discovers this when one of them kicks him in the stomach. He curls reflexively, hissing, and then the other boot collides with the side of his head and the lights go out.


	9. Chapter 9

All right! I think we're back on track. Going to try the chapter-a-day thing starting now, see how that works out.

Thank you all once again for your awesomeness. ^^ And, once again, I own nothing, please don't sue me.

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><p><strong>Chapter 9<strong>

Megamind comes to with a splitting headache and his hands tied above his head. He does not groan, although he sort of wants to.

He lifts his head a little and blinks, trying to ignore the pain that comes with moving. Up close, he can see that the casing around the reactor core is made at least partially of what looks like triple-thick glass. _Oh that's not good_.

He leans against the restraints, keeping his knees loose and turning slowly on his toes. There's a little bit of slack, enough that he can work with, and he risks a glance upward. Manacles with a good length of chain between them, threaded through a large iron ring hanging from the ceiling. Excellent. Megamind is handy with a lockpick, and he always carries one or two up his sleeves out of habit. It's a comfort thing.

Low voices nearby catch his attention and he quickly lowers his head.

"This was _not_ part of the deal," Voice 1 mutters. It's a deep voice and gravelly, the kind that tends to belong to either the slightly congested or the hideously musclebound. "You said nobody would come snooping in this part of town. An' you said we'd go public last week. _You_ said we'd be on easy street by now."

"I know, I _know_." Anderson sounds irritated. "There were a few problems with the machine. I had to be sure – I mean, it's a touchy process! There's a lot that can go wrong, I _told_ you. But we're up and running _now_, right? So tomorrow we call a press conference, bring them down here."

"Fine." Voice 1 is reluctant, sullen. Two steps away from being surly. "But what d'we do about _him?_"

There's a pause, followed by a sigh. Megamind concentrates very hard on looking unconscious. "I don't know. I just don't know. He wasn't supposed to come in until the end. You know, verify my research…I wish he'd fallen off the balcony when you hit him."

This is followed by another, longer pause.

Voice 1 breaks it. "We could just shoot him."

"We could." Anderson sounds like he's actually considering it. Wistful, almost. "Might be easiest. Throw the body in the harbor. No, no," and now he sounds exasperated, "people would _miss_ him. They'd look for him. Start asking questions. And the last thing I want is that reporter nosing around. You know she would."

Megamind holds very still, but starts flexing one of his wrists, trying to move the length of wire tucked against his forearm up to his hand. With any luck, he'll look like he's just coming around and uncomfortable.

"Looks like our guest is awake."

Well, no use pretending anymore. Megamind opens his eyes and fixes Anderson with what he hopes is an arrogant stare. "Your village called," he says. "They want their idiot back. What is that, glass? Why did you make the containment field out of _glass?_"

Anderson looks at him as if he's gone simple. "So that I could see it."

"You don't have to _see it_," Megamind cries. "You should have computers monitoring it! The internal pressure, the external oxidation!"

"Glass doesn't oxidize."

"But _palladium does_." Megamind nearly sobs at him. He cannot _abide_ such blatant stupidity. "_Surmayye a'raasac_. There are not enough words in the English language to tell you how foolish this is. I give that thing four hours, tops, before it explodes. How long has it been orange like that?"

"A while."

"Oh for crying out loud," Megamind mutters, and rolls his eyes. Aha, he's got the wire in his hand now. Excellent. He sets to work on the lock.

Anderson starts pacing again. His associate, who is twice as wide and half again as tall as the professor – _talk about stereotypical henchmen_, Megamind thinks – cracks his knuckles. "Look," Anderson says. "I _know_ I've got it right. Maybe it's different from what you've envisioned, but there's more than one way to skin a cat, eh?"

Megamind shrugs, trying not to wince when it pulls on his shoulders. "Sure," he replies. "Sure there's a chance you've figured out another way to do it, but it's infinitely small and exists only because _there's always a chance_."

Anderson steps forward and grabs him by the chin. Shocked, Megamind freezes, and prays Anderson hasn't heard the soft _click_. "If chance isn't in my favor, then stick to the _facts_," the professor hisses, and Megamind was wrong, because Anderson's eyes are blazing with a fire that is more than half insane. "You are my prisoner. And you are at my mercy. And you should not antagonize me, because there is _also_ more than one way to skin an alien and I swear to god I _will_ find out what they are. _Those_," he snarls, and his fingers tighten enough to bruise a human, enough to make Megamind flinch, "are _facts_."

"Not exactly," Megamind says, and swings his hands down – only one of his wrists is free; the other is still connected to a chain with a rather heavy weight on the end, and he tries to swing so that he'll hit Anderson with the clanking manacle.

But Anderson is surprisingly quick, and he dances away and then while Megamind is still off-balance lunges forward, managing to land a pretty sharp punch in Megamind's solar plexus. As the alien doubles over, wheezing, Anderson's hand flicks inside his suit jacket and pulls out something horribly businesslike.

There's a sharp noise that makes their ears ring, but it isn't from Anderson's weapon. Anderson leaps back, and Megamind drops to his knees and rolls away, then to his feet.

The gun speaks again, and the cement near Anderson's feet splinters and kicks up in fragments. "Careful," Megamind yells. His mind is racing. _Minion? Can't be, Minion will still be sick and he can actually shoot straight_. "Don't hit the reactor!"

"Here's a fact for you, _Doctor_ Anderson," a voice calls back, and there's a sound from the catwalk high above the stage. "Your credentials are fake."

Anderson snarls.

"Oh, _very_ articulate," the voice purrs, and Megamind's heart leaps, then sinks. _Roxanne_. Anderson might not be who he says he is, but his gun is very real indeed, and he looks like he knows how to use it.

Roxanne fires and misses a third time, followed by a quiet, masculine, "Give me that, you have no idea what you're doing," that makes Megamind pause.

Anderson's hench-creature knows what _he's_ doing, though, and he dives for Megamind, who dodges – right into Anderson's waiting arms.

The dark pistol's muzzle is cold under Megamind's chin.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Roxanne swears under her breath as the professor turns in a slow, tight circle, Megamind clutched close against him, the matte black of the gun shining darkly against blue skin. "Akos, can you shoot that thing?" she whispers.

The cabbie is pale. "It's been years," he whispers back, "but I think I can get him."

Roxanne shakes her head. "If you're not sure, don't try it. We can't afford to miss. This is a man who _will_ kill his hostage."

Akos nods, looking slightly ill.

"Show yourself," Anderson snarls. "Whoever's in here – I want you to come out with your hands up!"

Roxanne grabs a flat grey box from the bag she and Akos carried in and unfolds it. It opens into a narrow sheet of metal, less than four feet long and rounded at both ends, with two slots in the middle. Roxanne slips her feet into the slots and then digs in the bag for the black strip of cloth she'd brought. She'd had to cut up one of Megamind's capes, but it was an old one and in Minion's sewing box for repairs anyway. She wraps the cloth around her head like a balaclava; there's no sense in blowing her cover if she doesn't have to.

Feet still firmly attached to the metal strip, she jumps off the catwalk and lands in midair. There's enough metal in the room that the strip can pick up on the natural magnetic fields – something about the compound keeps it from having a positive side, so it isn't attractive to other magnets. It works like a flying snowboard, but it's completely silent.

Below her, Anderson and his henchman are still looking wildly around. Megamind, for some reason, seems completely calm.

"Up _here_," Roxanne says, and Anderson looks up. Roxanne looks down and grins, forgetting for a moment that he can't see her mouth. "Hi."

"Who the hell are you?" he exclaims, surprise taking over. The gun moves a little, and Megamind's eyes narrow and he plants his feet. "Silver surfer wannabe?"

Roxanne cringes. "Tell me, do you research _any_ of your references?" she demands. "Please. A flying metal snowboard does not a silver surfer make." She looks at Megamind. "Can you believe this guy?"

He doesn't reply. One arm is twisted behind his back, but he brings the other one up lizard-quick, stabbing backwards. At the same time, he tilts his head all the way back and turns it sideways, butting backwards into Anderson's shoulder. It makes his head pound and stars gather at the edges of his vision, but it also makes the human take a step back just as the gun goes off.

It's a near miss, but Megamind springs away without further injury as Anderson lets out a high-pitched scream and staggers back, clutching his face with both hands. His gun goes flying into the first few rows of seats. Roxanne catches sight of some bright piece of metal protruding from between the man's fingers just before she angles her airboard downwards.

Megamind raises his elbow, and Roxanne catches it and pulls him aboard, but it throws the board off balance and he has to jump off before they reach the catwalk. Anderson's henchman moves as if to catch him, but Akos fires twice and the henchman swears and scrambles backwards.

The revolver Akos is using is a .357 S&W, the only normal-looking weapon Roxanne could find in Megamind's arsenal, and there's one shot left.

"You shut down the reactor," Roxanne says brusquely. "I'll take care of Anderson and the muscle."

Megamind nods. "Be ready to get out of here in a hurry if you have to," he warns. "If I say go, go. Don't wait for me."

"Don't be ridiculous," Roxanne snaps, and twits her torso around in a mid-air rendition of a helicopter kick in time to catch the henchman in the mouth with her airboard. He dents the stage when he lands.

Megamind grins and runs for the controls. The switchboard is almost insultingly small.

_Bang_. The henchman howls and clutches his foot. Roxanne surfs upward, black-and-blue dressing gown fanning out around her. As far as costumes go, she could have done a lot worse. "Give me the gun!" she cries.

"No good," Akos calls back. "That was six shots! Sorry!"

"_Give me the gun,_" Roxanne repeats, and Akos shrugs and tosses it to her. Below, Megamind is typing frantically at the controls, pulling levers and flicking switches and apparently completely unaware that Anderson is sneaking up behind him, blood streaming from one eye socket, face twisted with hate and fury.

Holding the revolver by the barrel, Roxanne angles the airboard at Anderson and buzzes around him on a cushion of magnetic field as she swings the .357 around in a neat arc to connect smartly with his left temple.

He drops like a stone. Unfortunately, the shock of the collision causes Roxanne to overbalance and go tumbling head over heels up one of the aisles. The airboard folds back up as soon as it's jarred loose from her feet, and clatters to a stop some feet away.

Anderson's henchman makes a sound like an enraged bull and charges, but Roxanne knows Megamind, and suspects that he would have no reason to own a 'normal' gun. If she's wrong, she can only hope that Akos will pull through. She lifts herself on one elbow, takes careful aim, and squeezes the trigger.

_Bang_.

The henchman goes down with a roar of pain, bleeding from his upper thigh. Roxanne springs to her feet and runs to him, kicks a knife out of his belt. Then she has to jump away when he makes a grab for her ankle – and she trips, and falls over the edge of a theater seat with a strangled curse. The henchman sits up and lunges, and he gets her ankle this time, and Roxanne kicks at his head as he drags her towards him. And then, without warning –

_FOOM!_

The flash of blue light is bright enough to leave Roxanne blinking, half-blinded for a second. The hand around her ankle has gone slack, the big man fallen face down on the faded green carpet. When Roxanne finishes blinking the sunspots from her vision, she sees that there's a large hole with smoking edges in the back of his shirt, and a neat ring of burned, blackened skin underneath.

He's very still, but Roxanne smacks him on the side of the head with the butt of the revolver, just to make sure.

"_Nicely_ done," Megamind says shortly when Roxanne appears at his shoulder.

"You think I need you to protect me?" But her tone is half-joking, and Megamind laughs in spite of himself.

"Yeah, yeah. What should we do about those two?" he asks, jerking his chin in Anderson's direction.

"Could just shoot them," Roxanne says quietly. "Throw their bodies in the harbor."

Megamind glances at her. "You heard all that?"

"Don't you _ever_ scare me like that again."

There's a brief silence while Megamind enters a few codes. "Hah," he says. "Okay, I'm in. This shouldn't take long."

Roxanne looks over at Anderson. She's shaky from the adrenaline, but other than that she feels pretty okay about what just happened. It's not the first time she's faced down a villain, but still, she's a little surprised that she isn't…well, upset. At all. "We could use the lasers and the spikes."

"No, not the lasers and the spikes," Megamind murmurs, grinning. "Look, can you just tie them up or something? I'm kind of busy, here."

"I found rope!" Akos calls, poking his head over the edge of the catwalk. "Lots of rope."

"Throw it down," Roxanne shouts back, and by the time the reactor fizzes dark, she has Anderson and his companion tied. Sirens are wailing outside, coming closer.

Roxanne blinks. "Who called the police?"

"I did," Akos admits, emerging from behind one of the curtains. He is struggling to get his arm out of a silver-and-black bullet-shaped invention, also from Megamind's pile of rejects. The buckles strapping it to his arm seem to have gotten stuck. "And an ambulance."

"That's not how the game is played," Megamind remarks, but he doesn't sound at all upset about it. "Thanks. Here, let me – that one's touchy, you have to pull it like this –" He grasps one of the straps firmly just behind the buckle and pulls hard. The buckle comes off in his hand, and the arm-gun crashes to the floor. "Well," he says after a moment of shocked silence. "Well, that's why I don't use this anymore."

Akos laughs weakly and rubs his arm, and then the doors fly open and he freezes. Megamind turns and raises his voice theatrically. "You're just in time, my good mmm…people!"

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Akos moves back into the shadows behind a ragged, dusty curtain, and nearly trips over something. He looks down, picks it up and brushes it off. It's an old mask, a full-face comedy mask, wooden and intricately carved, its tragic partner probably long gone.

But the ribbons are still attached to either side, and Akos quickly fastens them behind his head. The mask is heavy, but it will keep him from being recognized, and that's all he really wants. He didn't _ask_ to get dragged into this; Roxanne had needed someone to drive her because Megamind had taken the invisible car.

When he steps back out from behind the curtain in a cloud of dust and dead moths, Megamind has found a screwdriver somewhere and is busily taking apart the reactor's containment field, explaining to the chief of police what the machine had been intended to do and what it would actually have done. Anderson, still unconscious, is being handcuffed to a gurney. His henchman has already been carried out.

"Wait, so he's not technically a _villain_," the chief of police says slowly. "Just a severely misguided individual who wanted to help the city?"

"That's my understanding. _Ow!_" Megamind jumps a little and sticks his fingers in his mouth. "This bit'th thtill hot," he mumbles. He's crouching on top of the glass sphere, screwdriver in one hand and what looks like an oven mitt in the other.

"He's a severely misguided individual with forged credentials and illegal funding." The police chief turns to be confronted by a woman in a black…is it a robe? lined with pale blue. Her head, nose, and mouth are wrapped tightly in black cloth so that only her eyes are visible. She hands him a flash drive and a manila folder. "Here's everything I've managed to uncover about him. There's more, I'm not sure how much, but I can tell you with relative certainty that he has connections to the Chicago mob through his father. His last name isn't Anderson, it's Dreyson. Robert Dreyson, Junior."

The police chief blinks. "This is Sonny Dreyson's kid?"

"I believe so."

He looks down at the envelope, then back up at the masked woman. "Who're you?"

She smiles – he can tell. Her blue eyes wrinkle a bit at the corners and the cloth on her face moves. "Telling you that would rather defeat the purpose of the mask, wouldn't you say?" She looks over at Megamind as he clambers down from the sphere, dusting his hands together.

He turns around and waves both hands towards the ceiling like a ground controller at the airport. "Heave away," he cries, and the small army of brainbots that apparently followed Akos' taxi lifts the glass shells away from the rapidly-cooling reactor core.

Roxanne grins and turns back to the chief of police. "Let's just say I'm a strong proponent of truth."

He laughs and nods, sticks out his hand, and the woman shakes it. She has a firm handshake. He'll remember that.

Then he watches as she turns away and goes over to stand by Megamind. And takes his hand, weaves their fingers together. The ex-supervillain looks down, startled, then back up at her face and says something in an undertone. The woman shrugs, but doesn't look at him.

Interesting.

Shaking his head, he turns around and then nearly leaps out of his skin before he realizes that he's looking at a carved wooden mask. There's a dusty tee shirt underneath it, and khakis. "Hello," he says. "Are you with them?"

The mask nods.

"And I'm from the paper," says a breathless voice. It belongs to a similarly breathless man with a round, shining face and uneven teeth. "Hi, Peter Valdez, _Metro Times_, glad to meet you, glad to meet you. Did you get the young lady's name?"

The police chief shrugs. "Said she was a 'strong proponent of truth.'"

"Truth, excellent, excellent. And you are?" He rounds on the wooden mask, grabs the wearer's hand and pumps it with enough vigor that the masked man has to use his other hand to hold his disguise in place.

"Uh."

"Come on, man, this is for the _paper_," Peter-Valdez-Metro-Times stresses. "You gotta give me something to work with! Are you a new hero, too? Were you just in the right place at the right time? Where'd you get that mask?"

The masked man is blinking very rapidly. "Uhm," he says again. His voice is muffled. "I guess I'm a…strong proponent of…of justice?"

"Justice, justice, excellent!"

And before anyone really knows what's happening, Peter has the man in the wooden mask on Megamind's other side and all three heroes turned around with the shell of the reactor in the background, and is snapping photos like mad.

"Thanks, thank you, thank you all so much!" It's like a mantra. Peter-Valdez-Metro-Times scurries away still chanting it.

"What's he going to do?" Megamind sounds worried, and Roxanne grimaces.

"I'll take care of it," she says, and flips open the silver airboard. "Peter's overzealous but basically harmless. I'll talk to him. If you want to make your escape I won't blame you – I can try to get them to look at me, and Akos can show you the back way out." She glances up at him, then quickly away. "Kinda makes you wish you could still use smoke bombs, huh? Oh, speaking of, there's a holowatch chip for you in my camera bag. Swing by the office later to pick it up."

Megamind nods dumbly, and Roxanne jumps into the air. "Nibs!" she shouts, and everyone looks up as the brainbot zooms over. Roxanne circles a bit higher, shoulders squared and head up. "Nice work today! Now stick with me, huh?" She looks down at the crowd, and Megamind can tell that she's meeting people's eyes. "Gotta make sure the news man gets his facts straight," she says loudly, and _winks_, and there's a laugh.

Presentation. Roxanne is doing it right. And as she soars away over the heads of the people gathered below to scattered applause, Megamind slips around behind the reactor and follows Akos into the shadows.


	10. Chapter 10

The Red Hand of Doom is not mine, and neither is anything else in here.

Funny story about this chapter – somehow I got it into my head while writing chapter 8 that it was evening. Then I realized it wasn't; it was actually mid-morning when all the stuff in chapters 8 and 9 happened, and I had to completely scrap half of chapter 10 and rewrite the rest. XD

Oh well. Chapter 10, in which Roxanne is (still) mad, Megamind is (still) tired, Jo is (still) pushy and nosy, and Hal is (still) a nerd. Thanks to immortalwitness for checking my D&D terminology!

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><p><strong>Chapter 10<strong>

When Megamind gets home, he finds that Minion has fallen into exhausted sleep on the bottom of the pool. Megamind wakes him just long enough to assure him that no, everything's fine, and get him back into his suit where he'll be more comfortable.

That done, he knows he should go to bed, too, but he also knows that it's just past noon and he won't be able to fall asleep. So, since sleep is impossible, he heads upstairs to his drafting room. He picks up the de-gun on the way. After this morning, he's determined to have it on his person at all times.

He is flipping back through old blueprints, searching for ideas, something to keep himself busy, when he runs across the third draft of the completed harbor filter and his hands still. At the bottom of the page is the sketch he did of Roxanne, a lifetime ago. She's laughing. She's happy and smiling and he remembers the day in the park and his breath hitches before he can stop it, and then his hand on the page clenches and crumples the sketch and he's crying.

Because she's gone. She came to help with Anderson, god knows why, but after what he did? No. She's gone. And he should be glad, really, because he did what he had to do but it was _stupid_ and he _knows_ it was stupid.

Why can he admit that _now_, when it's too late?

_Stupid_, he thinks, and turns to leave. Whether he'll be able to sleep or not, he is going to bed. He cannot _deal_ with anything but bed right now.

Then his phone beeps at him, and he looks at it and nearly cries again. He has a meeting in half an hour with the Technology and Change Management Department, never mind that it's Saturday. At least it shouldn't take _too_ long. At least he can stop by the newsroom on the way home and pick up…whatever it is that Roxanne has for him.

This hero business is going to be the death of him.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Roxanne doesn't bother going home to change, just pulls off the makeshift balaclava and dressing gown and bundles them up together. The yoga pants are clean and so is her shirt – short-sleeved but clingy – and they're both black, so all she really has to do is stop at the dollar store and pick up a pair of three-dollar black flats and a cheap string of fake pearls. It won't fool anyone who looks closely, but she looks dressy enough to pass as business casual. She doesn't have any appointments today, and she tells Akos to just leave her at the store, then goes around back and unfolds the airboard. She needs some time to think, and she's beginning to like the airboard.

Sometimes she actually misses flying with Wayne. The airboard is different, but it's still _flying_.

Jo looks up when Roxanne flings herself into her desk chair. She waits a moment, then pokes her head up over the top of the partition. "Hey, hon, what are you doing at work? Thought you were going to take the weekend off, for once."

Roxanne is face down on her desk. She shakes her head without lifting it up. "I need to be _here_. I didn't sign in. I don't want to do anything, I don't want to _move_. I just want to sit here and cool off."

Jo blinks. "What happened? You get kidnapped or something? Is everything okay with…everything?"

Roxanne is quiet for a few seconds, just breathing. Then she says, "I just watched my boyfriend stab a man in the eye with a lockpick, I pistol-whipped an unconscious guy, and I flew to work on a flying snowboard. You know how I got in? Door on the roof of this building. Maintenance staircase. Ta-da, here I am. Jazz hands." And she wiggles her hands in the air, still without raising her head.

Jo frowns. "Go back to the bit about the pistol-whipping?"

Roxanne finally sits up with a sigh. "It'll all be in the paper tomorrow, I think. Remember I told you I was doing some research on Dr. Anderson?"

"I remember, sure."

"Turns out he's a phony," Roxanne says, and proceeds to tell Jo everything she was able to find out about Robert Dreyson, and everything that had happened that morning. "…So that's all of it," she finishes with a sigh. "I don't know what Akos did with the mask. I think he still has it. I kind of feel bad for dragging him into all that, I should send him a thank-you note or something."

Jo bites her lip. "I'm sorry," she says. "Rewind to the part where you slapped Megamind. Why? Exactly? Would you do that?"

Roxanne puts her face in her hands. "Oh god," she mutters. "I forgot you didn't know. He made me think he was cheating on me so that I would leave him. He also said something to me beforehand to make me think he was lying to me to get me to leave so that I would be safe."

Jo stares at her for a moment. "Get out of town."

"I know."

There's a brief pause. Then, "You're not going to go _back_ to him, are you?"

Roxanne bites her lip. "That's the thing, he _wasn't_ trying to get me to leave so that I would be safe. Wayne thinks – and Minion I agree – that Megamind was trying to beat me to the punch. Figured I'd leave him eventually, so he'd just spare the both of us a lot of heartache and trouble and make me leave. He knew I'd figure out that he wasn't really cheating –"

"How?" Jo asks, sounding exasperated. "How would you possibly know that?"

"Because if he _were_, I'd never find out about it."

Jo scowls and opens her mouth to argue, then closes it. "Okay," she admits. "Okay, yeah. That's probably true."

Roxanne nods. "Anyway. He knew I'd figure it out and be pissed, but he wanted me to stay away and he guessed the easiest way to do that was make me hate him. And you know me, Jo. I'd hate anyone who dumped me because he thought it'd be for my own good. Megamind knew that, too."

"Next question," Jo says, as soon as Roxanne finishes speaking. "Who is Wayne?"

Roxanne, who had been rubbing her temples, freezes. Then she looks up at Jo, thinking desperately. "Uh. He is. A friend of mine. From out of town."

Jo snorts. "You can't lie for _shit_. Who is he, really?"

"Forget it," Roxanne says sharply. "Just forget it. Please don't ask me again." But she remembers what happened last time she tried to hide something from Jo, and she groans. "Oh god. You did not hear this from me, you did not hear that name from me."

"Roxie," says Jo, and then Roxanne sits bolt upright and stares wildly around.

"I'm in a newsroom," she says. It doesn't matter that the newsroom is mostly empty. Someone is always listening. "Oh, god, Jo. We cannot have _this_ conversation _here_. No. Cannot happen." Her laughter is breathless, and slightly frantic. "Have you had lunch? I don't care. Come on. We're going _out_." And she leaps to her feet, grabs her friend by the wrist, and heads for the stairs.

They get to the street before Roxanne remembers the holowatch chip, and she has to run back upstairs and get it, and then leave it with the receptionist to give to Megamind if he comes by. That done, she leads Jo away from the newsroom.

Jo is laughing. "Roxanne, what the hell? Stop, what's going on?"

Roxanne drags her into the first building she sees, which turns out to be the library next door. Her research with Ber—_Megamind, black bloody damn_ – had introduced her to some quiet-study soundproofed rooms, and that's where she goes. And slams the door.

"All right, ignoring the creepy tiny room factor for a moment because you're bugging out on me, but you owe me big time for hauling me in here. Now _who is Wayne?_" Jo stares at her. "Good lord, you'd think I'd asked for the mob's hit list, or something."

Roxanne licks her lips. "I'll only say this once, and then you have to swear to drop it. And never say anything, ever, to anyone."

"Okay, sure."

"Jo, _swear_."

Jo rolls her eyes and puts her hand on her heart. "I do solemnly swear to never say anything, ever, to anyone, about what you're going to tell me. Now _tell me_."

Roxanne swallows. _I can't believe I'm doing this_. "Wayne Scott."

Jo blinks. Narrows her eyes. "Come again?"

"Wayne Scott," Roxanne tells her. "You know. Big, nice teeth, wears a cape, used to fly around in a white suit? Remember?"

Jo looks as if this information is physically painful to think about. "Yes, I remember. Has your little blue man from Mars figured out how to raise the dead, then? Or have you finally lost it?"

"You said you'd drop the subject."

And that's when Jo freaks out. Roxanne has to duck to avoid the flailing limbs. "Jesus H _Christ_, Roxanne! You _can't_ drag me in here and tell me something like that and expect me to nod and say, 'right then, jolly good,' and just leave it alone! And can we _please_ exit this _tiny evil room_ before I start hyperventilating?"

"You're already hyperventilating," Roxanne mutters, but opens the door. Jo bursts out of the little room like a very small angry whirlwind, and doesn't stop hissing under her breath until they're out in the sunshine again.

Then she turns to Roxanne and grabs her by both arms. "To clarify –"

"Lower your voice, please."

Jo presses her lips together for a moment, then says in a quieter tone, "To clarify. Wayne is alive. He was not, in fact, burned to death in an abandoned observatory a year ago."

Roxanne nods.

"And he's _alive?_"

Roxanne hands Jo her cell phone. "Listen to the saved voicemail," she says tiredly, and sits down behind one of the huge marble lions that guard the stairs to the library.

Jo holds the phone to her ear. A moment later she goes very pale and sits down on the steps.

When it's over, she pulls the phone away and stares at it.

"Remember, you can't say _anything_," Roxanne says quickly, then recoils at the scathing look Jo sends her.

"Do you _really_ think I'd betray him like that?" she demands. "If he wants to stay hidden, I'm certainly not going to blow his cover." She looks at the phone again, frowns, does something, then hands it back to Roxanne and stands. "Wow, though. Really wow."

Roxanne just nods. 'Really wow' is a pretty good description of the past couple of days.

"Oh good, you're here," Jo says brightly, and Roxanne looks up. "That was fast."

The young, pale man she's talking to looks _astonished_. Jo grins. "Right, so, I'm leaving now. Gotta go back to work. But you and me," and she points at the man and then jerks her thumb back at herself, "need to talk. I have Monday morning off, meet me for coffee at Joes' Joe at ten."

He smiles thinly. "Meeting at ten with Jo at Joe's Joe," he replies. "I think I can remember that."

She grins and knocks a fist against his shoulder. "See you," she says, then turns and waggles her fingers at Roxanne. "Bye! Have fun! Try not to level the city, okay?"

The young man looks up at Roxanne. His eyes are very green, and he looks very worn-out in spite of the sharp black suit he's wearing.

For a moment, they just look at each other. Then the man says, "I got the chip."

Roxanne closes her eyes. "Hello, Megamind."

"Jo texted me, told me where you were – I was just walking past the library, in fact." He pauses. "I think she wants us to have it out now."

"I think I'm going to strangle her," Roxanne murmurs, and Megamind laughs shortly. "Listen, can this…can this wait?" She opens her eyes. "Because quite frankly, I'm…I don't think I can do this right now. I'll level with you, Megs," she says, and her voice is flat and her expression is cold, "I am madder than I think I've ever been in my entire life. And if I do this now, I am probably going to yell. I don't like yelling. Word on the street is you're not a fan of it either, so let's just…let's just leave this until we've had some time to think."

To his credit, he does not look away. "Yes," he says, and nods. "Yes, I…I quite agree." After another brief, awkward pause during which neither of them breathes much, he turns to leave. Then he turns back. He looks very hesitant. "You knew _Julius Caesar_. Are you…I don't suppose you're familiar with Sonnet Sixty-Four?"

Roxanne's lips thin. "I'm really not in the mood for cultural references."

"No, I know," he says quickly, and steps towards her, holding out a folded piece of paper. He holds his arm fully extended, and does not come any closer than he has to. "Just…read this? Please. I know it's cliché, but," he offers her a brittle smile, "so am I."

Roxanne takes the paper without speaking, and Megamind immediately turns and walks away, threads his way into the crowded street and disappears into the sea of faces.

She looks down at it. It has ragged edges, probably torn from some notebook or other. The side facing her is covered with lines of what look like spidery Chinese characters. They are small, and precise, and actually rather pretty if only because she can't actually read them. It could just be a grocery list. Roxanne resists the urge to ball it up, throw it into the wind.

Finally she unfolds it. The words on the other side are English, written in the same spidery hand.

It's one she hasn't read, but after reading through it once, she knows exactly why Megamind picked this one. The first half is just a formality, really – she's willing to bet a few dollars that all he really wanted her to read was the last six lines.

_When I have seen such interchange of state, / Or state itself confounded to decay, / Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate, / That time will come and take my love away. _

_This thought is as a death, which cannot choose / But weep to have that which it fears to lose_.

Roxanne rubs a hand over her face. Then she stands, shoves the paper in her purse, and begins to walk. She needs to think.

She isn't sure where she's going, and she doesn't care. She has a concealed carry permit, she's armed, and she's been around the block a few times, so when she finds herself on the wrong side of the tracks a few hours later she doesn't mind. She doesn't remember _crossing_ the tracks, but this is definitely the projects on the North Side. The flat grey wall of the Metro City Prison for the Criminally Gifted is just beyond.

A small boy runs past with a water pistol, chasing a girl who can only be his sister and shouting something in French. He's barefoot and grubby and tanned, and he's also laughing. His sister is alternating screaming back over her shoulder and giggling.

Who on earth would build a red schoolhouse here?

"Hey, lady!"

Roxanne turns to find the boy standing maybe ten feet away, his water pistol pointed at her. His eyes are laughing. "This's a stickup!"

She feigns terror for a moment, then grins. "What do you want?"

He lowers the pistol a few notches, returning her smile. Both front teeth are missing. "Candy?" Behind him, his sister peers out from a narrow passage between two houses with peeling paint. Her eyes are enormous.

Roxanne digs in her purse, comes up empty-handed. "Sorry, no candy."

"Awww," he says, but he doesn't look too disappointed. "That's okay. No one ever does. Bye, lady!" And off he goes again, bare feet flying over hot pavement and gravel. Probably some broken glass, too. His sister squeals and ducks back out of sight.

Laughing a little in spite of herself, Roxanne turns back to the grey jail. The afternoon sun is hot and bright, and she's in all black. She's been cooler, but she walks forward towards the jail along the road that leads out of town. It needs to be repaved.

Some of the inmates are in the exercise yard – there's a group of orange jumpsuits playing basketball, a few standing around smoking and talking. And a circle of maybe six in the corner by the side of the building and the road, all leaning forward and looking at something in the middle. Talking. Listening. Plotting? Scheming?

Roxanne moves closer, so that she can hear what they're saying.

"…Okay, guys, make a spot check."

"Fifteen."

"Ten."

"…Two. _Maldita sea_."

" 'S yer fault, man, yer the one what wanted ter play a warforged. I rolled a 'yes.'"

The first speaker heaves a sigh. "What kind of a yes, dude."

"The kinda yes what means I see whatever's out there, Nine K. Twenny-two."

Roxanne moves a little bit closer, enough to see that the men are clustered around a grid drawn in the dirt of the exercise yard. Little figures are grouped together on the grid.

"Okay, so, you see something up ahead. You wanna say something to your party?"

I-rolled-a-yes shakes his head. "Naw, I'm good."

"Okay, Ronnie, you're a _paladin_. Warn your group or something. _Jeez_."

I-rolled-a-yes-Ronnie mutters something under his breath, but announces, "Hey, guys, there's sompin up ahead!" Then he glares at Speaker One. "Happy?"

The first speaker has his back to Roxanne. He shrugs. "Sure, whatever. Okay. '_The road crests a small rise and descends into a dusty grove in a large, shallow dell. An abandoned farmhouse, partially visible through the trees, stands on one side of the road_.'"

_Wait a minute_, Roxanne thinks. _I know that voice_.

"'_You've passed a dozen spots much like this one already today, but this one feels wrong. Then you glimpse the glint of mail through the brush by the side of the road. Fierce warriors - tall, hairy humanoids with wide mouths and flat faces - are lying in wait!_'" The speaker finishes with a flourish. "Okay, guys, roll for initiative."

"Wait, wait, what are they? Can I make a wisdom save, or whatever you call it?"

"Like, a knowledge check?" The first speaker shakes his head. "Don't bother. It's just a bunch of hobgoblins."

Roxanne really shouldn't be surprised. She'd just thought he was more of a video-game type, rather than a paper-and-dice RPG type.

"Hal?"

He turns, blinks, and then his round face lights up. "Roxie! Hey! Hold on a sec, guys."

He gets up and comes over to the fence. Roxanne isn't sure what effect jail is having on Hal, but he actually looks pretty good. He's obviously happy to see her, and he seems to have made…friends.

"Hal, what _are_ you doing?"

He gives her another toothy smile. "Running a campaign! Tried fourth ed, but it sucked, like, _major_ balls, so we went back to three-five. Red Hand of Doom. It's pretty sweet. My man Ronnie, he's like, a hacker or something, he got the books online for free!"

Roxanne shakes her head. She only understood about half of that. "So, you're doing okay, then?"

"Are you nuts?" He laughs. "I'm doing _great!_ This place is epic, no lie, everything is free and they let you get stuff if you don't make a lot of fuss, so I'm set with all the games I want. But enough about me, what's new with you?" He leans on the fence, still smiling. "You still working the big stories? Heard something went down today."

Roxanne nods, and wonders if she should be suspicious. Hal looks happy, sounds happy, seems to bear her no ill will – what is going on in his head? "Yeah, something…went down. We fixed it, though."

He cocks his head. "We? Who's 'we'?"

"Well, I _say_ we, but I don't mean… I mean, I'm just a reporter, Hal, you know that." She sounds defensive, and inwardly, she kicks herself. That's the second slip she's made today. "I meant Megamind fixed it."

Hal wilts a little. "Oh yeah. Him."

Roxanne watches Hal closely. Megamind's name had an initial dampening effect, but Hal brightens right back up again a moment later. "So he's still doing the hero thing?"

"Seems to be."

"Kinda weird, he ends up taking over the city and then taking care of it. Kind of a major life change, huh? Well, good for him."

Roxanne blinks. Is there something wrong with her ears? "Good?" she echoes faintly. "But I thought you…I mean I thought you would…"

"What, hate him?" Hal grins, shakes his head. "Nah. I kinda did, at first, 'cause you know, he was pushing me to do all that stuff, and then he took everything away and I went to jail, plus he lied to you and Space Stepmom like, _majorly_." He looks at her, raises his eyebrows. "I mean, c'mon. You'd be pissed too, right?" He doesn't wait for an answer. "But then I was talking to Ol' Mitch and Big PM, and they told me some stuff. Made me think a little. Got my head on straight, you know? And you know – if you see him –" Hal glances over both shoulders and leans in, drops his voice. "You should prob'ly warn him he didn't make any friends switching sides like he did. Made a lot of enemies. Ol' Mitch and Big PM are still sticking up for him, and nobody argues with them, 'cause Vincent's on their side, but they're getting kinda old and maybe they won't be around much longer."

Roxanne's head is spinning. "Wait, wait, who are these guys? What are you saying?"

Hal rolls his eyes. "Man oh man, Roxie, you got _no idea_. Vincent's the boss, okay? So most people won't say they're against Blue. But personally, I think it's prob'ly a thirty-seventy, maybe forty-sixty split against." He grimaces. "Just warn him, okay? If you see him. Tell him Ol' Mitch says to watch his back."

"Oy! Nine-K! Drag your ass back over, huh? Yer girlfriend kin talk t'yer later!"

Hal jumps. "I gotta go. But hey, wow, it's good to see you, Roxie! Stay safe!"

And then he's turned around and back to the game, laughing and tossing dice and actually being social. The mind boggles.

But what he said about staying safe is good advice, and the sun is going down, so Roxanne gets one of the guards to call her a taxi.

She is still thinking hard. Who are Old Mitch and Big PM – what's their connection to Megamind? What 'stuff' did they tell Hal? How does Megamind know the boss? Does _everyone_ in there have a nickname?

And how is she going to go about talking to Megamind?

Best to sort things out tonight, probably, before anything else happens. But she wants it to be on her terms – get him off-balance, take him by surprise before he has a chance to think out what to say or how to say it. She's sure he's already thought of what he should and should not tell her, but she doesn't want to hear that; she wants to hear the truth.

And the quickest way to get him to say what he _really_ thinks will be to blindside him. It's not _nice_, but it'll be more effective that way – he's probably going to be angry and defensive, and she'll need to put an end to that as quickly as possible.

She can't just walk in the door, either. That's not enough of a surprise; that would give him too much time to think. It might only be a few seconds, but at the rate Megamind thinks, even a few seconds is too much.

An idea occurs to her. It isn't a very nice idea, but it might actually work.

"All right," she mutters as the taxi pulls up to the curb. "Time to test the lair's security."


	11. Chapter 11

There are at least…oh god, three? Three more chapters to go yet, I think. I did not expect this thing to get so long! I blame Anderson. It's all his fault.

This is a long one, almost twice as long as usual (is that a good or a bad thing? Thoughts?). Also (and on a not-entirely-unrelated note), please note that the fic's rating has changed to M, and it isn't due to character death or extreme profanity. If that's…not your cup of tea, I guess just…read the first half? Or skip this chapter?

When I wrote Cold Fusion, I actually wrote Chapter 6 first. This chapter was what happened first for True North. I hope it turned out okay!

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 11<strong>

Eleven thirty at night, and the lair is dark and cold. Megamind has completed the new database for the Technology and Change Management Department, and he is _finally_ going to bed. Maybe he'll even be able to sleep, for once – if he doesn't sleep soon, he's afraid he might simply pass out. At least tomorrow is Sunday and his schedule is clear. If he _does_ pass out – and the bone-deep exhaustion that drags at him is a pretty good indicator that he will – he won't have to apologize to anyone.

He closes the door to his room with a soft click and leans his head back against it for a moment before lifting his hand to the catch of his cape and shrugging it off. He crosses to the wardrobe to hang it up, and he's about to shut the wardrobe when a noise from behind catches his ear – a soughing rustle, the sound of silk on silk, of someone trying not to move.

He freezes, one hand creeping for his de-gun.

And he almost reaches it. The tips of his fingers touch it, and then it's torn out of his grasp and thrown to the side with a clatter, and there's a hand gripping his neck from behind and he snaps to attention as if he's been electrified.

"_No—!_"

"I'd say I'm sorry for startling you," Roxanne's voice says softly behind him, "but honestly, I'm not. I had a hell of a time getting in here. Your ventilation ducts are too narrow to crawl through."

He pulls his wrist to his lips. "Minion," he begins, but Roxanne's hand tightens.

"Minion's not coming."

His blood runs cold. "What have you done to him?"

"What makes you think I would do anything to _Minion?_" Roxanne asks. She sounds genuinely baffled.

Everyone _else_ who's hated him has tried to hurt the things he loves. And Roxanne has more cause to hate him than anyone else, and she's ambushed him in his room and grabbed him by the neck so she definitely wants to make him pay. Still, he hears the confusion in her voice and believes it. Experience has taught him that if she _had_ hurt Minion, she'd be gloating about it, and anyway she didn't seem openly vindictive earlier.

But then, there was a crowd, earlier, and before that, Akos was there. Some small, rational part of his mind recognizes that this is paranoid, and he forces himself not to panic.

"What are you doing here?" He has to fight to keep his voice steady. Roxanne's grip is tight, and there's fire shooting down his spine and up through the back of his skull. "Why did you come here?"

"I told you. Leave it until we've had time to think. I've had time to think. So tell me, why did _you_ try to drive me away?"

He's glad she cannot see his face when he winces. "…Let me go."

"Not happening."

"No, _seriously_." His voice sounds urgent and strained to his own ears, "_please_. It _hurts_, you're, haaaggh_nnnn!_" and he cuts off with a cry of pain when her grip tightens further.

Then the hand is gone, and he stumbles forward and whirls, cornered against the wardrobe. Roxanne stares at him, and he stares right back. He actually looks _afraid_ of her.

He _is_ afraid of her. His next words confirm it.

"You're unarmed," he says shakily, eyes flick-flicking up and down, looking for some fold or crease in her clothing that would give away a concealed weapon. "Why aren't you armed?"

Roxanne takes a small step back. This is not going according to plan _at all_. She had planned to get the jump on him and demand answers, but she hadn't expected that he'd be _scared_ of her, and she certainly hadn't wanted to hurt him – she truly hadn't meant to squeeze, but he'd caught her off-guard and she'd tensed. His short scream, so surprised that it _had_ to be real, had nearly given her a heart attack.

Standing here, staring at him, she thinks that perhaps this was _not_ the best approach.

She'll have to change tactics. "Megamind." She keeps her voice low, tries to calm down. "What exactly did you think I came here to do?"

His green eyes are _enormous_, and he's almost shrinking back into the wardrobe. "Payback?"

"Payba—" Roxanne gapes at him. "I want an explanation! _Answers_, that's all! And I knew you wouldn't give them to me straight! You thought I'm here to make you _hurt?_"

"You grabbed me by the _neck!_" he cries, wild-eyed. "What was I _supposed_ to think? And why wouldn't I give you answers? What reason could I _possibly_ have to keep things from you _now?_"

Roxanne holds up both hands, shakes her head. "Okay, time out. You have to tell me, what is the deal with the neck thing? Both times I've touched it, you've freaked out."

"Roxanne, _look at me_," he snarls, and good lord, he's _shaking_. "My head is huge and my neck is thin. _Do the math_."

Her mouth falls open. "That's your weakness?"

He inhales sharply and clenches his elbows to his sides, defiant and glaring and terrified. "Maybe."

Roxanne stares at him for a moment before nodding slowly. "Noted," she says. "Now tell me why you tried so hard to drive me away."

He looks at her, then sighs. He's still nervous, but she isn't making any aggressive moves and she sounds calmer, now. And he doesn't feel any hatred coming from her, which is interesting and unexpected, but he's pretty sure that's accurate because he only took one dose of caffeine today. Mostly she just smells very, very angry, but maybe she really did just come here to talk.

And why shouldn't he tell her what she wants to know? It's not like he hasn't already lost everything. He owes her this much, at least.

"You already know that I thought you and Wayne were a couple. That's part of the reason why I always went after you." He takes a deep breath, maintains eye contact. "I would never have hurt you – I think you realized that fairly early on –" Roxanne nods, "– but as soon as word that you and I are together gets out, it'll start all over again. And any other supervillain, any _competent_ supervillain, wouldn't hesitate to hurt you, even kill you, to get to me. Roxanne, I _know_ you can handle yourself, really I do, but _still_, it's a valid point of concern."

Roxanne glares. Megamind's expression is pained, but he's talking normally and he seems to have calmed down somewhat. "On top of the whole 'safety' issue, there's the fact that you have to hide us from your family and from the public. As long as you're with me, you'll have to sneak around if you want to have any normality at all.

"Now, I'm fine with having to sneak around," he continues when Roxanne starts to speak. "I've done little else my whole life. I'm used to it. But _you shouldn't have to hide anything_. You deserve to be with someone your parents will approve of, someone whose existence doesn't constantly put you in danger, who has a steady job and a good paycheck, who can take you on…on trips around the world and…" he fumbles for a minute, waves a hand incoherently, "_cruises_ and things, I don't know. Someone who can give you _children_ someday, help you raise a family."

His lip curls, and Roxanne blinks again. She's never known him to look or sound so very bitter. "It was only a matter of time before you realized all that for yourself. Look at me, Roxanne. I'm a _fucking alien_."

There's more, of course, but that's where he stops. He can't continue. He can't.

Roxanne shakes her head. _This really takes the cake_. "So you, what, made some 3-D _movie_ to lie to me? To make me leave? So that I wouldn't have the chance to get bored or tired of you and leave you on my own?"

He stiffens. Somehow, hearing _her_ say it is just that much worse. "That's correct. Yes."

Roxanne slaps him. Hard. He makes no sound, does not step back, does not lift a hand to his face – only turns his gaze back to her, looking injured but resolute, and waits for the other shoe to drop.

"That," Roxanne says, and aims a finger at his chest, "is _bullshit_. And you know it. You _do_ know it, don't you." It isn't a question. "This plan? This plan to make me leave you? Is _so far beyond reason_ that it probably qualifies as insane. You _knew_ I wouldn't go on my own, you _had_ to have known, otherwise you'd never have made that stupid movie or projection or whatever it was." Her voice is shaking with suppressed fury but she _will not yell_, she will not. "Deliberate self-sabotage? Is that what this is? Far be it from me to psychoanalyze, but are you _trying_ to make me angry? Do you, you, do you think you _deserve_ to be hated?"

_That_ one sounds like a question, and Megamind risks a reply. "That's…possible." Roxanne raises an eyebrow. "I hadn't considered it. But yes, given my psychological profile and recent behavior, the way I think and the way I'm responding to the sudden changes in public opinion…" His eyes move back and forth a few times before he refocuses on her face. "I would say it is definitely possible. Likely, even."

Roxanne nods slowly, her lips pressed together in a thin line. Megamind tenses. _This is it, this is where she leaves_ –

"And _that_ is why I'm still here."

– _What?_ He's pretty sure that his heart just skipped a beat. The world froze on its axis. Time stopped.

Roxanne still looks furious, and she still _smells_ furious, and her voice is still cold, but she's standing firm and she's still talking. "That's part of it, anyway. You may very well be crazy, but you are still, somehow, self-aware enough to say all of that. And I _know_ why you're the way you are, I understand that, and that's the second part of why I'm still here – you have some pretty serious psychological issues, but I know why and I know you're working on it and I also know that it would be pretty shallow of me to leave just because you can be unstable." She pauses, then adds, "For that matter, it would also be pretty shallow of me to leave you because you're a 'fucking alien,' as you so bluntly put it. The third part…"

She steps forwards and lifts a hand towards him, and he takes a couple stumbling steps back and nearly falls into the open wardrobe. Roxanne pauses, waits for him to meet her gaze, then closes the distance between them, placing her hand lightly behind his head and pulling him down.

His hands clench by his sides, initially, and he tries not to move or encourage her. She'll leave him eventually, won't she? Everyone leaves him eventually.

But she's being so _gentle_, and she's so soft, and if he pushes her away now he will break in half. That's all there is to it. He cannot help this, cannot keep his hands from lifting to her waist, cannot keep his lips from parting, cannot keep his tongue from meeting hers. He needs her like he needs to breathe. And, very quietly, somewhere far in the back of his mind, a little voice whispers, _maybe this one is different_. _Maybe, just maybe, this one will stay_.

"The third part is that _I love you_, you stupid man, and I'm stubborn." Roxanne rests her hands on his shoulders, turning and guiding him backwards until he hits the bed and falls with a startled intake of breath. She pulls away and slips one arm behind his knees, half-lifting him the rest of the way onto the bed. He stays where she puts him, frozen, while her fingers undo the buckles on his gloves and work them off. She straddles his feet to reach the ones on his boots, and soon those are gone as well.

_What's she—_

Then she slides back up his body and kisses him again, and he is clinging to her like a drowning man clings to a bit of rock.

"Now listen to me very carefully," Roxanne says in a low voice when she breaks away. She is lying almost on top of him, her arms resting on either side of his with her hands wrapped around his shoulders. He's splayed his fingers over her upper back. "You _cannot reason through this_. I know it's tempting to try, but all the facts you can think of are against you because they _aren't_ facts, they're all based on your perceptions of yourself and what you think I want. And you don't see yourself clearly, and you obviously don't know what I want."

"Then what _do_ you want?" He's almost begging. He has to know. He _hates_ not knowing, hates it with a passion, and Roxanne is right – this is one thing he cannot figure out, because he _knows_ he thought through everything, his plan should have worked, but _here she is_. Incredibly, impossibly, and against all reason, here she is, still. And he is _so_ glad.

She gazes down at him, her heart in her throat, and runs her fingers over the sharp lines of his face – his eyes, his nose, his lips, the angles of his cheekbones. She rubs her thumb over the point of his chin, smooths his goatee. The corners of her mouth turn up in a sad smile.

"_You_," she says, very very quietly, and presses her lips to his forehead.

Her breath is ragged, and hot against his brow, and he realizes that she is actually _crying_.

"Rox—Rox_anne_," he protests, cups her face in his hands and moves her so that he can see her. She isn't crying hard; there is only a thin trail down either cheek. But her eyes are over-bright, and swimming, and as he watches, unable to speak, two more tears follow the first.

She looks at him and blinks a few times, scowling. "I just don't know how to _show_ you that," she tells him, and draws a shuddery breath that that goes straight to his heart. "I don't know how to make you understand that I want – my God, Megamind, I love you _so much_."

"But I—"

"_You_ were trying to protect yourself," Roxanne says, and whether she knows she's let her guard down or not, this is the first time Megamind can tell that he has actually hurt her and not just made her mad. Her anger is beginning to fade, and the hurt has probably been lurking behind the whole time – but anger, to Megamind, is sharp and burning enough to mask just about anything. "No one can fault you for that, least of all me. But you're an _idiot_, and don't mistake me, I'm still madder than hell that you tried to drive me away without even trying to talk to me about it. That's just – that's just unbelievably stupid. And insulting. And I know," she continues, glaring at him, "that you were desperate and knew that I'd try to dissuade you. _That's not the point_. The point is that you evidently feel like you can't trust me enough to talk to me about whatever it is that's bothering you. I know the stereotype, I know guys tend not to talk about their feelings, and I'm fine with that, but if you _can't_ talk to me, something's wrong."

He smiles shakily. "Well, when you put it like _that_."

Roxanne shakes her head back and forth, scowling. "I shouldn't expect you to know this sort of stuff already. The only person who hasn't failed you so far is Minion. It's only natural that you'd think I'll eventually leave you, too. And, honestly?" she pulls back a little bit and looks at him. "There's no guarantee that I won't. I'm not going to promise you that we'll be together forever. I'll do a lot of things, but I won't do that."

She waits for a moment, watches him think through that. Finally Megamind blinks, stone-faced. "I understand."

But he's reached the wrong conclusion, Roxanne can tell. She isn't sure _how_ she knows, but she does, and her hands turn to claws on his shoulders and he flinches. "_No you don't_, you very _stupid_ creature," she hisses, teeth clenched, "you _don't_ understand. You've got me between a rock and a hard place, Megamind, you really do." She swallows. "If I say I'll never leave you, you'll be hurt twice as worse if this whole business goes south, because then I'll have lied to you. But if I tell you that I won't promise anything, you'll hear it as inevitability, and it _isn't_. I _want_ this to work."

Megamind quickly brings a hand around to cover her mouth. "My turn," he says, making it a question. Roxanne glares at him for a moment, then nods.

He takes a deep breath and drops his hand. "I know that it isn't inevitable," he tells her, speaking very quickly. He _really_ isn't good at this. He's getting better about talking to people, but handling personal conflicts? He locks up.

He _knows_ that neither one is a done deal. He knows that she might not stay with him, and he knows that she might. He knows both of those things because they are _factually true_. And he also knows that what Roxanne had told him back in the park is true – it's up to him.

"I know it's not inevitable," he says again. "It's like what you said. I can either accept that you do want to be with me _at least for the time being_, or I can continue to insist that there's no possible way and eventually you'll take the hint and leave. I know that, Roxanne. I promise I do."

Roxanne stares at him. "Then _what is your problem?_"

Lock-up or no, he has to try. "See things my way," he begs. "If I treat this the way I treat _every_ new situation – if I try to make predictions based off of prior experience – then that you'll leave _is_ inevitable because _everyone does_." He breaks off for a moment to breathe, then continues, "O-okay, Minion came back, and that was my fault, but—"

"Wait. _Wait_." Roxanne holds up a hand. "_Minion_ left? When was this?"

Megamind shakes his head. "Never mind. It was my fault. The point is that I'm having trouble remembering that you might actually stay with me because most of my psyche keeps yelling at me to just make you leave and get it over with. But believe me," and he laughs shortly, "I am well aware that it isn't rational." He heaves a sigh. "It's easier when you're here with me, laughing at me and telling me I'm an idiot. When you're gone, it's hard for me to tell whether my 'facts' are based on my knowledge of you or if they're just me being fatalistic again. I think it'll be easier when we don't have to hide anymore. Until then, there will still be part of my mind that keeps saying, 'what if she prefers this.'

"And as unfair as it is that you should have to make some public declaration that you really do want me – and _I know_ it's unfair – I think that will be the easiest way. I'm sure there are other ways, but that's the only one I can think of, and that means we'll have to put up with me being an idiot for a few more months because I think we should wait at least until Christmas to go public."

"_Christmas?_" Roxanne sounds incredulous.

"There's a lot that happens around Christmas," Megamind says quickly. He's been thinking about this for a while, and he knows what Roxanne is going to say. "We'll be big news initially, but it'll be forgotten much more quickly than if you said something tomorrow. The scandal will be less. People are not going to take kindly to you dating me no matter how much time passes and no matter what I do – no matter what _either_ of us does."

Roxanne glares at him for a moment more before rolling off of him. For a second, he's afraid that was the last straw and she's had enough, but she just lies on her back beside him and stares up at the ceiling. Megamind keeps still and listens to her breathe – she is taking long, calming breaths in through her nose and out through her mouth. "Okay," she says quietly, after a long minute. "Okay. Yes. That makes sense."

She turns her head to look at him. She isn't smiling, but she isn't glaring anymore, either. She just looks determined. "But I'm not putting up with you pulling stuff like this until _Christmas_. I tell you now, Megamind, and you'd better _listen up_, because this is important." She pauses, then says, very slowly and clearly, "If you _ever_ pull something this brainless again, that's it. I'm gone."

And after a long moment, he nods. "I understand."

Roxanne heaves a massive sigh, and the last of her anger dissipates. "Okay. So." She swallows. "How do we fix it?"

He groans and pushes the heels of his hands against his eyes. This is the second time he's done that since Roxanne has known him, and she thinks she might know what's coming next.

"I have _no idea_."

Roxanne nods to herself. _Figured as much_. But _she_ has an idea – and it's one she's been considering privately for quite some time. "I might."

He glances at her. "Really," he says. He sounds dubious. "What's that?"

Roxanne rolls over and leans in, tilts Megamind's chin away and presses her lips to the skin just under the sharp corner of his jaw.

His mind goes very nearly blank. "What—are you—"

She pulls up, locks eyes with him. He looks bewildered, but not resistant. "Remember how last time I said that physical contact might be one of the few things that gets through to you?"

Megamind nods.

"Well," Roxanne says slowly, and oh lord, she cannot believe she's about to say this. "Let's get physical. I want you. I've wanted you for ages. I don't expect you to believe that, but it's true. And quite frankly, I would like to prove it to you."

Megamind's mouth falls open and he blinks a few times, looking rather like he's just been hit over the head with a mallet. For a moment, Roxanne thinks he's going to refuse. Tell her no, it's too soon, we'll find a different way. Honestly, she wouldn't blame him if he did.

And then he shuts his mouth with a snap and half-rolls onto his side, facing away from her, and puts a hand back over his shoulder to tap a finger against the almost-invisible seam going down the length of his spine. "There's a zipper, here," he says tightly, and Roxanne laughs and kisses the back of his neck, eliciting a startled gasp.

"Noted," she whispers for the second time that night, and pulls the tab down.

He turns back to her, lifts shaking hands to the hem of her shirt as she peels the suit down over his arms, baring his chest.

She runs her hands over him, follows his musculature with her eyes and fingers. He is similar to a human male – the general shape of him is the same, but he is long and thin where a human with his strength might have bulked up. His expanse of blue skin is completely unmarred but for two scars – a pale line in the hollow below his right collarbone and another just under the pectoral muscle on the same side, each easily four or five inches long. Her exploring fingers linger there, briefly, and she wonders how he got them before she realizes that she's been sitting and studying him for nearly two full minutes.

Megamind, for his part, is perfectly willing to simply lie still and let her look at him – he isn't sure how far she wants to go, but he'll go the whole way if she will. He's just worried about what she'll _think_ if she sees him. He knows how sex goes, and he knows he and Roxanne aren't totally compatible in the downstairs compartment, and he isn't sure if that's a deal-breaker or not. Is she having second thoughts? She's just _sitting_ there, scanning him, like she's reading a book.

Then she blinks, and leans forward and settles herself against him, tucks herself close against his side, and kisses him. Hard. He lets out a startled noise when she brushes her lips up the line of his jaw to his ear, and hisses when she runs her tongue along the outer rim. When she bites his ear, he yelps, then makes a funny gasping whine and tips his head to the side a little.

_Oh he's vocal_, Roxanne thinks, and Megamind feels her mouth curve into a smile against his skin. _Vocal is good_. She presses soft, open-mouthed kisses down his throat and then bites along his collarbones, making him jerk and hiss.

His hand on her back is clenching and unclenching in her shirt, dragging on her arms a little, and eventually she just shrugs out of the shirt entirely. She isn't using it. Megamind's hand comes up to touch the clasp of her bra.

_Okay, _that's_ interesting_, she thinks as he flutters his fingers over the clasp for a moment before simply unhooking and removing it. _He did that one-handed_. _Hell, _I_ can't do that one-handed_.

And a quieter, filthier part of her mind whispers, _I bet he's good with his hands_.

She hums a little as he pulls her bra off, and leans against him, skin-on-skin. He trails his right hand up the curve of her back, scratching, and his left returns to cup her breast, squeeze lightly, palm at her nipple.

He tips his head further to the side and swallows hard when she comes back to his neck, and Roxanne licks her way up to his ear again, exhales hot against the damp line, and his hand on her breast clenches and he actually moans. She does, too.

He must have noticed, because he's experimenting in earnest now, and Roxanne needs to change something so she pulls back, rises to her knees and unties the drawstring at her waist. Megamind watches, one hand still resting on her hip, and hooks his thumb in her waistband.

"Go on, then," she says after a long moment during which neither of them moves.

He looks up at her. "You're sure about this."

Her eyes narrow. "Megamind. Think who you're talking to."

His lips curve into a small smile. "Fair point," he murmurs, and pulls her pants down.

Roxanne wiggles out of both pants and underwear, and is moving to lie back down when a long-fingered blue hand in the middle of her chest stops her. "Wait."

Startled, she sits back on her heels and looks back at him. "What—"

"Just…" His green gaze trails slowly down her body, and she feels abruptly, unaccountably shy but lets him look. After a moment, he comes back up to her face, eyes shining, exhaling sharp quick breaths like laughter as he smiles. "You. You're just, you know. _Beautiful_." He dissolves into inarticulate gestures, blinking and smiling and totally disbelieving – then, smile growing wider, he gives her another swift once-over.

"Hey, about that catsuit," he says unevenly. Roxanne snorts.

"Oh, shut up," she murmurs, and leans down to kiss him, feels him chuckling breathlessly into her mouth.

He stops when she wraps both hands in the top of his suit and peels it the rest of the way off. He lies very still, wide-eyed and white-knuckled and trembling as her gaze travels down the length of his body.

She gets to his hips and stops, blinks, then looks back up at his face, and is unsurprised to discover that he looks utterly _terrified_.

"My, my species," he says, and almost cringes, "my species doesn't do penetrative sex, it's…it's more of a…contact? Thing?"

There is a bony ridge between his legs, nothing more that she can see – but the flat triangle of skin just above that bears an intricate dappled pattern of curving lines, dark-dark blue and silvery and damp-looking. Roxanne takes his meaning almost immediately.

He looks tentatively up at her, finds her studying him with a delighted expression on her face. He hadn't expected that. She looks back at him, grinning, then lies back down at his side. "_God_ you're gorgeous," she mutters into his ear, and he lets out a few more breaths of nervous laughter.

"Clearly," he gasps, and her hand is crawling south, "clearly we are both _HAAa—hagghnnn_…" and trails off into a gasping moan, turning to bury his face in the curve of her neck as she presses her palm flat against his sex and _twists_.

Roxanne isn't really sure what she had expected to find down there, but she sure as hell isn't disappointed. Megamind in the throes of pleasure is the sexiest thing she's ever seen, long and thin and writhing for her, hissing and moaning under her hands.

This is the first time anyone has touched him like this and it's overwhelming – an unknown amount of time later, he manages to open his eyes to see how Roxanne is taking it. She is watching his face with a kind of intense curiosity, and when he catches her eye, she grins and lifts her hand away. He makes a little protesting whimper of disbelief, and when she blinks and cocks her head, he realizes that she's not just messing around at random; she's actually studying how he reacts.

That simple realization does _unbelievable things_ to his ability to think, and his eyes go wide and he grabs her by the hair and drags her down, twists his head to catch her lips. It's an odd angle, but _that's the_ _point_.

Or maybe it isn't. There really isn't a point anymore. All he knows is that she's been having fun playing with him for the past few minutes, bringing him close and easing him down, and he's been content to let her – but this is a game of give and take, and if they're going to do this, he's going to make sure they do it _right_.

He rolls, pushing her back against the sheets and sliding a leg between hers, and Roxanne, startled, lets him. Megamind has been hesitant and unsure up until now, but his demeanor has changed completely. In the space of about five seconds, Roxanne has gone from gazing down at his tortured face to staring up at him as he looms over her with burning eyes. One arm is behind her neck, almost cradling her head, but his hand is twisted to curl around her shoulder. Roxanne has just enough time to register that this move has the added benefit of essentially pinning her before Megamind is kissing her again, deeply, tongue sweeping into her mouth.

His fingers trace lines of fire over her skin as he bends his head to her breast, and then he's _sucking_, and she feels teeth and whines, and cracks one eye open long enough to see him glance up at her and lift an eyebrow. The corner of his mouth lifts into that old familiar smirk just as one hand creeps lower and slides up the inside of her thigh, and she gulps a little and lets her knees fall apart, and _yes_.

Yes, he is _very_ good with his hands – those long fingers of his are agile and incredibly strong, and before she really knows what's going on he's got two of them inside her and he's _scissoring_. His thumb runs across her, pressing and rubbing here and there until he finds the right spot and she jerks and gasps into his mouth. He changes the rhythm a few times, makes a couple adjustments and she can almost sense him taking notes about how she responds.

And he's a biter. She hadn't expected that, hadn't expected that _at all_, but she's more than okay with biting and she isn't about to complain. He's very careful not to do it too hard, and when his mouth moves to her neck and the curve of her shoulder she can feel the change, knows that he's being careful not to mark her. Not where anyone will see.

He's bringing her up, she can feel herself getting close—and he stops. She does not _mean_ to whimper, does not _mean_ to say, "Oh, _please_," it just kind of happens.

Megamind turns his face to her ear, licks, nips, and then he presses a quick kiss to her temple and pulls his arm out from behind her head, lifts himself up and slips his narrow hips down between her legs, presses against her.

Her eyes snap open as he begins to move. _What the…?_ Because she _feels_ him, throbbing not in but against her. He is _hot_ against her, hot like fire but without the pain, like tiny tongues of electricity crackling up and over and through her – she cannot quantify it, cannot describe it, but she feels him singing up through her, his heartbeat and his breathing and the sharp taste-smell roiling off him. It feels like getting tipsy, a little bit, but instead of starting off as a pleasant tingling warmth behind her eyes, this rises up from below and shudders through her bloodstream, pulses to the beat of her heart and his in tandem. And it feels good. It feels _really_ good.

He dips his head a little, mouth open, and grinds down against her just as she bucks up to meet him, and something about the combination makes his eyes slam closed as he cries out, convulsing and curling up around her. And there is an explosion of heat and a wave of blue flame that leaves Roxanne trembling and panting in its wake, Megamind's name on her lips.

He falls on top of her, panting, then rolls off to one side and onto his back. Suddenly cold, Roxanne moves over to lie against him, and he wraps an arm around her. They are both sweating and breathless and weak-limbed.

Megamind has no idea what to say – luckily, Roxanne recovers her powers of speech a little before he does. "So," she says, and she sounds dizzy, "you believe me now?"

He bends his head to stare at her for a moment before he laughs, coughs a little, laughs harder, nodding hard because he cannot say _Fuck, yes_.

"Good," Roxanne says flatly, but her eyes are shining and she feels perfectly content. Happy, even. She's quiet for a while, and Megamind snuggles in as close to her as he can.

"By the way," Roxanne says eventually, "I don't suppose you know what's in the stuff that you…um. Of. Of your…stuff."

He blinks and pulls back a little, astonished. _Is she…? _ "You mean, have I analyzed the chemical and biological components of my semen?" When she blinks up at him expectantly, he stares down at her in complete disgust. "_No_, I haven't, and why are you even _asking_ that?" He sounds revolted and incredulous. He _is_ revolted and incredulous. He fully expects to have to send a team of brainbots up to peel his eyebrows off the ceiling. "That is _not_ the sort of thing that I look at and think, _hm, I wonder what's in that_."

Roxanne snorts. "Okay, okay, you have a point, but I wouldn't have been surprised if you had." Megamind isn't sure whether or not to be insulted or pleased, but before he can decide, Roxanne adds, "And can we get under the covers, now?" She's started to shiver. "I am _freezing_."

He lifts his head and frowns. "Is that normal?" he wants to know. Roxanne shrugs, or maybe the shivers have grown more violent – they _have_ grown more violent; he's sure of it, and he scrambles under the sheet and comforter, dragging her with him and settling her against him, back to front, wondering if she might be allergic to him and thinking that that would be _awful_. She chuckles a little at his half-panicked reaction.

"I'll be okay, really."

"Bull," he says sharply, startling her. "You're colder than I am."

"Not for long." She presses backwards into his chest, and he holds her there with both arms.

"I'm probably not the best person to use for body heat." He doesn't let go of her, though. He's not sure if he can. "My core body temperature is a few degrees lower than that of a human."

"I know." Roxanne turns her head to the side, glancing back at him, and he looks at her in surprise. "You think I haven't noticed that you're always cold? Besides, you keep the lair cool, even in the winter, and you were always quicker getting me here in summer. Doesn't take a genius to figure out you don't like warm weather." She lets out a small sigh.

His mouth curves into a smile. Part of his mind is still hung up on the idea that her chill is further proof that the two of them are incompatible. But the fact that he is pressed full-length against Roxanne's naked body is louder, and the memory of what they have just done together is stronger, and he hums a little and buries his nose in her damp hair. "What else have you figured out?"

Roxanne thinks for a while. "Well, you've had all these blankets since I first started staying over here, and they're really thick, and you wear shoes and gloves inside almost all the time, even when you don't have to. I'm guessing the lair is a little _too_ cold, even for you."

"I like being warmed," Megamind says. "Too cold is better than too hot, but warm is okay. And I hate waking up cold. You're sure you're all right?" he adds. She's stopped shivering and he thinks that her skin is almost as warm as it usually is, but it can't hurt to check.

"I'm fine. Tired."

"Me too." He kisses the top of her head, tucks himself more securely against her. They don't fit perfectly together – he is all sharp bony angles and Roxanne is all soft curves, and her legs are longer – but they manage. They would probably fit better if he was in front, but he's pretty sure that the size of his head would make that difficult. "Go to sleep."

"Mmkay," Roxanne says, and yawns, and after she establishes that no, there is no possible way to get any closer to Megamind than she already is right now, she does exactly that.


	12. Chapter 12

Another fluffy chapter! This one was also written quite some time ago.

In which Roxanne is stunned and we find out what Megamind has been looking at in the viewfinder. Oh, and the thing Roxanne says that makes Megamind go _whaaaaaaaaat_…if you're confused, remember that Minion mentioned it in Cold Fusion. Chapter 2, I think it was. (If anybody is reading this who hasn't read Cold Fusion, you may want to check it out. Some things might make more sense. It isn't necessary, though.)

Man, you all are amazing. And I love you all a _whole bunch_.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 12<strong>

Megamind is awake and staring at the ceiling. Again. It isn't _fair_; he ought to be asleep right now. He was able to get _some_ sleep, but not nearly enough.

He has too much on his mind to be able to really relax.

The harbor filter is working. It's actually performing better than Megamind had expected it to: Metro Harbor is the clearest and cleanest it's been in living memory. But clear water is not necessarily healthy water. _I need to remember to double-check that it isn't removing any _good_ things from the water with the bad_. A healthy colony of algae has built up in the filtration system, which bodes well, but Megamind will still need to check that the filter isn't impacting the lake's phytoplankton.

And the Metro Tower rebuild is behind schedule again. Last week's minor hiccup with the electricians has been smoothed over and progress is still underway, but there must be a way to get everything back on track. He'll figure something out. Move some brainbots from construction to wiring?

Also, there's a shortage of windows in the city and he's going to need to fix that. Most of the glass that was broken in the past year has finally been replaced, but there are still a few shops waiting for the next shipment of plate glass to come in. _Note to self: call major glass suppliers in Detroit and Chicago, see if they can give me a discount on a bulk order. And rent another storage unit for the Metro Tower window glass – the furniture alone should fill up the four units we already have_.

Speaking of furniture, he also needs to call the company that's supposed to be sending desks in for one of the office buildings Hal smashed when he turned the broken Tower around. The building itself has been fully repaired, and all the other supplies have arrived, but nobody can return to work until they have desks. The order has been delayed for nearly fourteen business days in spite of the extra fee Megamind paid for a rush delivery, and that's just unacceptable. He can afford it, but still, money doesn't grow on trees and he fully intends to demand a refund of the rush fee. He'll route the money into some city fund or other, then cook the books so nobody notices.

No, he can't do that anymore; that's illegal. It'll have to be via an anonymous donation. _Yes_.

But there have been a _lot_ of anonymous donations lately. Someone will notice.

He frowns. Well, he could just create a fake organization. Build a website, establish a false history, then contact the appropriate people in Metro City as one of the organization's board members and establish a partnership… No he couldn't; that's mostly illegal too. And it would require the alteration of federal tax records, and that's _very_ illegal. (Although certainly not impossible. He's done it before.)

(Twice.)

And anyway, 'partnership' would tend to mean that the city would eventually be expected to reciprocate. So what would be the point, really?

_Another anonymous donation, then_. He sighs.

_And_ he needs to erase the three identities that are still receiving insider information on the stock market. He does feel badly about that. He's been ignoring the calls, really he has, but he just hasn't had time to actually get rid of the identities. First thing tomorrow morning – okay, first thing later today, after the sun is up – all documents in those names are going through the shredder and then he will personally burn them. He will watch them turn to ash. He _will_. He will _make_ time to do it.

He should go do it now, while he's still thinking about it. But he doesn't want to. He wants to go to sleep. He closes his eyes, hopeful, but they won't stay closed. _Whoopee_. He sighs, and Roxanne stirs beside him, rolls over, burrows under his arm and then lies still.

He looks at her. She's curled on her side under the covers, and her skin is warm against his, and he smiles. He's tired – he's exhausted – but he does have her to thank for the little sleep he was able to get earlier.

This is twice now that he has wronged her, and twice now she has forgiven him. It's the second time that things have worked out exactly the opposite of what he had expected. There will not be a third time. He will not hurt her like this again.

He rolls over, picks up the notepad and pen he keeps by his bed to jot down the ideas that come to him in his sleep and tears off the top few pages. Scribbles himself a brief note on the first blank sheet he comes to, then puts the pad back down. He'll rewrite that note as often as he has to, in as many languages as he knows, until he believes it. It's all about building neural pathways.

There will be no more sleep tonight, at least not for the time being, although he knows he can usually catch an hour just before dawn. With a sigh, he sits up and swings his legs over the side of his bed, shuffles around with his feet until he finds his slippers. Shivering a little in the cold air, he hurries to get into his pajamas, then pads silently to the door and heads down the hall.

He needs to reorient himself. His life has been turned on its head, and he needs something to hold onto in the midst of all the madness.

Everything was a lot easier back when people hated him. People just sort of _look_ at him now. Some of them talk to him, some of them avoid him, but mostly, they just don't know what to do with him.

But he can walk to the corner bakery as himself. He tried it for the first time a few weeks ago as an experiment, on a relatively cool morning – leather and gloves and cape and all, spiked and black and evil-looking, and he walked out the door without his holowatch. Walked in full daylight through the maze of empty warehouses to Giorgio's Patisserie, an Italian family-owned bakery with a French name that does surprisingly well for its location. And opened the door, terrified but not showing it.

Giorgio had blinked once, but that was all the indication he had given that he was surprised, and then he had come out from behind the counter and shaken Megamind's hand. "Woops, careful of the spikes," he'd said, and laughed such a deep, full laugh that Megamind had known he had meant it. And Megamind had laughed, too, astonished but delighted, and had walked out of the bakery ten minutes later with a white paper bag containing the first legitimate purchase he had made _as himself_ in years.

It's incredible, and he loves it, but it's also a little bit terrifying to go places without his holowatch. But he doesn't _want_ to hide from people – this is his city, he's working to fix it, he's working for good, he shouldn't _have_ to hide anymore. He wants the same thing he's always wanted, the thing he gave up on ever attaining years ago. He wants acceptance. And he's _getting it_, he's getting it in spades, and that's the scary part.

He needs to ask Roxanne where she got the new holowatch persona. He was fiddling around with the new chip this afternoon – as far as he can tell, there are several hundred new images, all featuring the same young man wearing different outfits. The styles of clothing are all over the place, and the seasonality ranges from spring to winter. And the winter clothes? For each outfit, there is that outfit with a coat; that outfit with a coat and scarf; that outfit with a coat, a scarf, and gloves; that outfit with a coat, scarf, gloves, and hat. The summer clothes also are grouped in variations, but to a lesser extent (after all, winter is when normal people dress in layers).

Bernard had one outfit: the blue turtleneck and brown suit jacket combo. This new persona has _hundreds_. The sudden deluge of options is, honestly, kind of intimidating.

Megamind needs to reorient. There is still one constant in his crazy, upside-down world, only one, and he needs it now more than ever.

When he reaches the planning room, he grabs his swivel chair and sits, then pushes off the floor and squeaks his way over to Main Control, where he pulls out the collapsible viewfinder. It takes him a few minutes to find the right distance, the right coordinates, and bring everything into focus. Once he does all of that, he settles forward with his elbows on the dark controls so that he can just stare into the viewfinder without having to think about balance.

Inhale. Exhale. It's sad, kind of, that this is the only way he can stop thinking anymore.

"What are you doing?"

Megamind jumps, looks wildly around. Roxanne is standing just inside the curtain, her moccasin-ed feet at odds with the blue and black dressing gown.

"Wha—nothing," Megamind says hastily. It's a reflex more than anything else; this is private.

Roxanne blinks. Frowns.

"It's, I couldn't sleep," Megamind stammers, scooting to hide the viewfinder behind his back. "So I came down here. I do that, sometimes. When I can't sleep."

She knows he's hiding something; he can tell, and he curses his inability to lie convincingly. But he isn't sure he wants to elaborate further. This is _private_. He can feel himself growing defensive, can feel the tension pull his shoulders square and stiff.

But Roxanne doesn't _look_ reproachful or upset. She just looks vaguely, sleepily quizzical. And she _sounds_ vaguely quizzical. "Can I see?"

He sends a glance over his shoulder at the viewfinder, then turns back around. What is he afraid of? He knows she won't laugh. Well, okay, she might, but she won't mean it.

But still. This. This is not something he ever expected to share with anyone – this is _his_, and his alone. It's been his solace when he needs it, his outlet, the one fixed point in his life when he feels that even Minion might not be the one to turn to. This is Megamind's true north, and he does not share well.

But this is _Roxanne_ asking, and she's probably had enough of him hiding things from her, so Megamind swallows his pride and his worry and his fluttering, childish selfishness and nods jerkily. "Sure," he says. "Sure, come here."

Roxanne doesn't move, just tilts her head a little and blinks at him. He can't tell what she's thinking, but the moment stretches out and she still doesn't move.

And then she steps back, shakes her head. "No, it's okay. Sorry. I didn't mean to intrude, you don't have to show me if you don't want to."

Megamind blinks. She surprised him with that one, and Roxanne grins sleepily when his wide-eyed astonished stare wanes into a smile of shy, tentative relief.

"Followed you 'cause I was curious." Roxanne shrugs a little, turns to leave. "I'm going back to bed now. Try to get some sleep, 'kay?" Then she chuckles. "Sleep, Megamind. You need it."

She disappears up the hall. She doesn't see that he has gone absolutely still in his chair or that his face is very, very white.

Day six. His father's face, tired and careworn. His mother's voice. _"Sleep, dear. You need it."_

No. No sleep. He knows what he has to do. It's going to be difficult – hellishly complex, but he can do it. Light sources are not easy to work with, and he'll need to program conflicting frequencies and multiple line-of-sight interactions. And there is the problem of routing video feed from the telescope lens to the cameras. And the perspective and scale are going to be nearly impossible to work out. But he can do it. He has to. He _needs_ to.

Wide awake, he rolls out the 3-D projectors.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

"Roxanne." There is a hand on her shoulder, long fingers wrapped around her bicep, shaking gently. "Roxanne?"

She stirs, turns her face to the pillow. "Mmmglfh."

Megamind shakes her more insistently. "_Roxanne_," he hisses. "Wake up. Please?"

It's the 'please' that catches her, it always does. He always sounds so _hesitant_. "Time's it?" she mumbles, and he lets go immediately.

"Half-past four. Come _on_, I want to show you – I want you to see something."

She sniffs, scrubs the back of her hand over her eyes. Megamind is tired, too, but his green eyes are shining and there's an excited smile hovering around the corners of his mouth like it's afraid to show itself.

"Mmkay," she says, and crawls out of bed. Her neck is stiff.

Megamind is holding out her robe for her, and she shrugs into it. The way he moves catches her attention – he helped her into the robe but released it as soon as she was in, drawing his hands away from her shoulders without touching her. He ties the sash around her waist using only the tips of his fingers, then turns and almost skips to the door.

Roxanne blinks at him. She hasn't seen him like this in a while, not since he gave up villainy, not since the last time he'd kidnapped her. He's moving the way he used to when he had a new plan, something new to show off. Judging by the way he's bouncing, it's probably a full-size doomsday device.

Megamind half-dances down the hall while Roxanne trails slowly along behind him, utterly bewildered.

When she rounds the corner, he's sitting in the high-backed chair where she'd found him only a few hours before, rubbing his hands together, terrified and enthusiastic all at once. Something is different about the room, but Roxanne cannot quite put her finger on it. Before she can really look around, Megamind licks his lips, throws a switch, and the windowless lair is plunged into absolute darkness. Roxanne feels the curtain trundle closed behind her.

Megamind's voice threads its way out of the dark. "This is what I was looking at," he says quietly, and there is a click and Roxanne's jaw drops. Her eyes go wide.

The lair is still completely dark – she cannot see viewscreens, or machines, or Megamind, but the air around her is filled with points of brilliant light. The farthest ones away are barely pinpricks while the largest ones, the ones closest to her, are easily as big as her head. No two are alike.

The totality of the illusion is _bizarre_; it's like everything has disappeared but this, and all she can see, no matter which way she turns – _even if she's looking down_, which is really weird and actually a little bit scary – is a field of lights extending into infinity. Some look like clusters of smaller pinpricks of light and some look like little more than glowing frozen smoke, but most are flat, and shaped like hurricanes.

_Not hurricanes. Galaxies_. She isn't sure how he did it, but somehow, Megamind is projecting a close-up view of outer space into his lair in three dimensions. It's like _being_ the Hubble telescope. And it is _beautiful_.

She finds her voice. It's strained, and she realizes that she hasn't been breathing. "Oh my god."

Megamind looms out of the array of stars, lit from all directions, watching her with a kind of hopeful pride. "This way," he says, and tugs gently at her hand. Roxanne balks. Her mind is still asleep enough to register the galaxies as obstacles, and if she moves, she'll throw them off course or fall into the infinite blackness below her feet – the endless void of space.

Megamind grins. "It's just a projection," he says softly, and she lets him pull her away. How he can tell where he's going is anyone's guess. Roxanne can't see the floor; she only knows it's there because her feet keep hitting it, but it's like walking into and onto nothing. Her grip on Megamind's hand is white-knuckled.

Then he stops walking, and Roxanne stumbles a little against him. She squints into the blackness and feels a shift in her focus, as if she has just gone from looking at the surface of a lake to gazing down through the water – there are shapes behind the blackness, somehow _in the same space_ as the blackness, but she is able to see that she is standing by the wall of control panels. Megamind reaches down and flutters a hand over the keys. The galaxies shift, dance, pull back and fade out around a single one of their number – that one expands, explodes into brilliance around them before falling into darkness. When Roxanne's eyes adjust again, she is surrounded by individual stars.

Megamind moves to stand close behind Roxanne, puts his hands on her shoulders and waits for a minute while Roxanne gapes up at the shimmering matrix, and then he takes her left hand in his and lifts their joined hands to point to a red-burning giant some ten feet in the air. There's a much smaller, much whiter one hanging just below it, but Megamind is definitely looking at the red star. "That one," he whispers.

Roxanne glances sideways at him. He is pressed against her back; his right hand still rests on her shoulder and their left arms are extended together out and up, and he is leaning forward and staring with shining eyes up at the red star. His fingers tighten on her shoulder.

"That one," he says again, and there are _tears_ in his voice. "T Pyxidis."

Roxanne looks back up at the star. Understanding comes crashing down, wakes her up completely with a shock like ice. "Home?" she whispers, and feels him nod.

The stars are amazing enough by themselves, but for him to show her something so incredibly personal…there is no comparison. It's impossible. There is absolutely _nothing_ that Roxanne can compare to what Megamind is doing, but she is well aware of the significance. He's sure of her.

He's _sure_ of her.

And she is sure of him.

She drops her arm just as he lowers his head to rest it on her shoulder, wrapping his narrow arms around her and pressing close against her back. And that's when the implications slam home.

He is the last of his kind, alone in a way that Roxanne cannot even begin to comprehend. His home world is dead, torn apart and compressed by the gravity of a collapsing star. The people of his new world threw him to the ground and kicked him until he stayed there. Everything he has, he made himself. Built from the ground up with his hands.

And now he has shown her the one thing he has not shared with anyone else, ever, the last he has of his home. The last _anyone_ has of his home. Roxanne is standing on Earth and looking across the years at a star that died eight days after Megamind was born, and she feels every lonely, empty mile of it.

All the planets in the galaxy, and he was sent to hers. All the countries on Earth, and he fell to this one. And, out of all the people in Metro City – out of all the seven billion people on Earth – Megamind picked _her_. And he thinks _he's_ the lucky one?

(Megamind isn't sure what she's thinking, but she went from total emotional flatline to utter shock to _love-love-love_ just _boiling_ off of her in about five seconds.)

(Some people think that love, as an emotion typically associated with the color red, should smell like cinnamon. It doesn't. It smells and tastes like cloves – and like cloves, it's unbelievably strong, and if you bite it too hard it bites back.)

And, good lord, what is Roxanne supposed to say? How do you respond to something like this without a full choir to back you up?

"This. Is." The words are barely there. "You just…_this_." Someday she will be able to form a coherent sentence.

Megamind chuckles, ducks his head against her shoulder again, and says nothing. A long moment passes.

"I do actually know what this means to you." Roxanne's voice is low. "And it…I understand what you're doing. And it's…a little overwhelming." He tenses. "In a good way," she adds quickly, and Megamind relaxes again. Roxanne lets out a breath and leans back against him a little. "I wish you knew how much I love you."

She isn't aware that she said the last part out loud until he clears his throat. "I do, in fact," he admits awkwardly. "Actually, it's…kind of making me dizzy."

Roxanne turns her head to look at him, sees him gazing at her out of the corner of his eye, and bursts out laughing. "Oh god – I'm sorry – I can try to, to tone it down or something –"

But Megamind is laughing too, shaking his head. "No no, it's okay. Just means I need to spend more time with you, that's all." He buries his nose in her neck and inhales, then shivers all over, still laughing. "Whoaaaaagh," he says, "that'll clear out your sinuses. _Eeeyikes_."

Roxanne has to turn around and put her arms around his neck to keep from falling over laughing, but that only makes Megamind laugh harder. And they both end up sitting on the floor, leaning on one another and snickering.

Last night, she wanted to wring his skinny neck. Now, she wants nothing more than to sit in the middle of this projection with him forever.

She's sitting in the middle of _space_. It looks so _real_. Roxanne doesn't know much about programming, but she can guess that this kind of hologram cannot be easy to create. It takes up the space inside the lair, then overlays obstacles to give the impression that it goes on forever. "This is incredible. It's like I'm looking through four dimensions."

"Five, actually," Megamind replies, and Roxanne can hear him grinning. "Self-contained infinite cascading tesseract. My own invention, you need it to get the perspective right, to get the scale to work out. Basically useless except for things like this." He pauses, asks shyly, "Do you like it?"

She turns, stares up at him. He looks so _hopeful_. Her reply of, _That is a very stupid question, what the hell do you think,_ dies on her lips.

Instead, she says slowly, "Do you remember the first night I stayed over here? When I told you I loved you more than there are stars?" Megamind nods, frowning a little bit, confused. "And how you tried to explain that it was a flawed comparison?"

"I remember. I also remember where you had your hands. It was very distracting."

Roxanne grins. "And now I know why. Anyway, I think I figured out why the comparison is flawed – it's volumetric, isn't it? Love would be measured as a volume, but the quantity of stars is just a number-line figure." She waits for him to nod again before she continues. "Well, I'll try again. I love you enough to fill all the space _between_ the stars."

Megamind regards her in silence for a while, an odd little half-smile tweaking his lips to the side. Then he says, "Roxanne, you can't possibly comprehend the size of that sort of space."

Her answering smile is that soft, fond one that she shows him so rarely and that always makes his heart skip a few beats. It's so unguarded. "Megamind," she returns, "I don't have to."

He has to look away, then – he has to look up at T Pyxidis very quickly, because if he doesn't, he'll cry again, and now is not the time.


	13. Chapter 13

I'm really sorry about the delay. Traveling happened yesterday and there really wasn't any way for me to post it on time. I apologize.

I feel it's safe to warn you that there's no end in sight to the Cold Fusion series – I foresee one short one before the Christmas fic. Possibly two – and possibly neither, depending on how things work out. And I'm sort of toying around with an idea for one after Christmas, another long one, with the sort of threat that makes Anderson look like a carnival clown handing out balloons. Either way, the next few will tone down the angst a bit and focus more on plot and events. _Is there no end to the madness? Is there no end to the plot bunnies?_

I kid, I kid, I am enjoying this immensely. I only hope that you are, too. I think this is the second to last chapter! An epilogue will go up at some point, as well.

**Chapter 13**

_Clank. Clank. Clank. Shuffle. …whirrrrrrrrr_

Roxanne cracks one eye open, trying to remember where she is and trying to figure out why she hurts all over. She's leaning against Megamind, who is leaning against her, and they are sitting on…

…Nothing.

She is strongly considering freaking out about this, when Minion's voice echoes out of the blackness. "Sir? Are you in hee_eeere…!_"

Right. The starfield. Megamind's home star system.

"Sir? _Sir!_" Minion actually sounds panicked.

"Minion?"

There's a pause. "Miss Ritchi? What's going on?"

"Hang on. Um…"

That's when Megamind comes awake in a flurry of juddering limbs, like a marionette spasming to life. Or, rather, he tries to – his whole body jerks, twitches, and then he yelps and presses a hand to his shoulder. "Owwww…"

He slits an eye open, peers at Roxanne. "You okay?"

"Oh yeah, I feel like a million bucks," she groans, stretching slowly and feeling the pull of cramped muscles.

Megamind gets to his feet slowly, pulls himself up by the edge of the controls. Roxanne hears clicking, and then the space projection disappears and she is once again sitting on the floor of the lair's Main Control, sunlight streaming through the windows near the ceiling.

Minion is standing in the doorway, looking deeply unsettled. Roxanne doesn't blame him. She can't imagine what pulling back a curtain and staring out into the infinite darkness of space would be like, especially in broad daylight, but Minion recovers incredibly quickly. "New projection, Sir?" he says, clanking over to where Megamind is hunched over the controls, trying to straighten his spine. "Interesting perspective."

Megamind nods, winces. "Yes, I developed it last night…agh, ow. Minion, please…?"

Roxanne hauls herself to her feet, blinking in the sunlight as Minion nods. "Way ahead of you," the fish says, and sets a box of what look like very long, thin pins down on the seat of Megamind's chair. "Hold on, Sir."

"I know." Megamind braces his hands against the controls. He really does not look good. His neck is twisted at an odd angle, and his back is curved to one side.

Minion sighs. "I don't know why you do this to yourself, Sir, I really don't," he mutters, and then puts one of the pins through the flannel of Megamind's pajamas into his back at the base of his spine, pushes it deep into muscle. Megamind's face twitches a little, but that's the only sign he gives that he feels it, and he doesn't move when Minion inserts another pin, then another, until there are two rows of pins running up the middle of his back.

Carefully, Minion places the last two pins at the top of his neck, just under the curve of his skull. "Okay. You're good to go, Sir."

Eyes closed, Megamind takes a deep breath and then, as he exhales, twists smoothly back into alignment, then takes his hands off the console and stands. His head moves into place first and the rest of his body follows – it's a weirdly snakelike movement, slow and measured and calculated, and Roxanne can tell that he and Minion have done this many times before.

Minion moves him away from the console, and Roxanne has to consciously stop herself from taking a step back. Few humans stand with their weight evenly distributed around their center of gravity, with their spines fully lengthened, and it's unnerving. Megamind's face is totally serene. He looks like a medical diagram.

He looks like an alien.

Right on cue, Megamind's eyes slide open and he's already looking at her, but his face _does not move_ and neither do his eyes, and the perfect balance and total lack of movement is just horrifying. It isn't _right_.

He stares blankly for a few seconds, and then his eyes slide closed again. Roxanne swallows.

"Hold still." Minion pulls out the pins in the same order he inserted them, starting at the bottom and working his way up. Only after the last pin is gone does Megamind open his eyes again and settle into a more natural stance.

He glances at Roxanne. There are dark smudges under his eyes and cheekbones, and the lines around his mouth have deepened. "Sorry you had to see that."

Roxanne has to take a minute to find her voice. She knows he's an alien – last night drove _that_ home rather well – but weird physiology aside, this is the first time he's actually _looked_ it, and not just like a blue-skinned human with a big head. "What just happened?"

"The direct nerve stimulation triggers a release of tension in my body's fascia. I don't think it works on humans."

Roxanne shakes her head. "Right, okay, but what _happened?_"

Megamind just looks embarrassed. Minion grimaces. "He can't sleep like that – rather, he shouldn't. In layman's terms, his muscles lock up harder and faster than yours do, and they take longer to relax. So a knot in your neck from one night's bad posture might take you a few hours to work out, maybe you have to sleep on it the next night? The same kind of tension in _his_ neck would take about three days to work out on its own."

Megamind casts a sharp glance up at Minion. "A day and a half."

"Three of _your_ days," Minion says, equally sharply, and Megamind rolls his eyes.

"I'll be fine," he tells Roxanne, then blinks. She's looking at him like she's never seen him before. "What?"

"Nothing, just…times like this, I wish I'd studied more anatomy or gone into medicine or something." She shakes her head again. "You've gotta be science's dream child. Compare the way _your_ body works to the way _our_ bodies work…I just think we could learn a lot from you."

"Probably," Megamind agrees, but there's a quieter note in his voice that Roxanne misses.

"I mean, seriously," she continues, "I'm really glad you're _here_, but how did the government just pass you by? I would think they'd have tried to take you ages ago. Study you, or something."

The silence that follows this makes her look around. Megamind's narrow face is drawn as if in pain. Minion's mouth is open like he wants to say something but can't find the words.

"They did." Megamind glances at Roxanne with an awkward half-smile, then looks quickly away again. And then, before Roxanne can say anything, he turns his face towards Minion. "I'm going to go get dressed. See you at breakfast."

There's another long silence after he disappears, walking towards the curtain using the same clipped movements Roxanne had noticed when he'd left her with Minion in the pool room.

Finally Minion sighs. "Miss Ritchi, I am really, _really_ sorry."

She blinks up at him, still trying to figure out what just happened. "W-why?"

Minion is visibly distressed; his fins are fanned as far as they'll go on either side. "I meant to warn you ages ago. There just…didn't seem to be a time, and I wasn't sure how to broach the subject, and…well…" He trails off.

"Call me dense, but I'm confused." Roxanne looks from the curtain to Minion. "What did I say? I think I missed something somewhere along the way."

But Minion shakes his head. "No, no, there was no way you could possibly have known. We…we don't talk about it." He takes a deep breath. "When we were six years old, some people came to the prison. Suits. Feds. The warden was away, out sick with the flu. They came in, flashed some papers, said a lot without saying much at all, and walked out with the boss. I couldn't go. He made them think I was just a pet. He made sure _everyone_ thought I was just a pet. He'd already read through the prison library by that point; I think he'd been expecting them."

Roxanne has to sit down. Luckily, Megamind's swivel chair is within reach, and she sinks into it without really noticing. Nowhere, in any of her research, has she found any reference to this.

Minion continues in a monotone. "The warden came back a week later and found the boss gone. He called in a few favors, we never found out which ones or who granted them, but there was a big fight that lasted two years and ended with the warden threatening to go to the press about some documents or footage or something he'd found. The feds said he wouldn't dare. He called their bluff and went. I don't know what happened, I don't know what it was he found; it never made it into the press and we never heard anything else about it, but two days after the warden left to go to the newsroom, Sir was back and we were going to school."

He sighs again and looks up at Roxanne. "And that's all I know," he finishes, and shrugs. "Now you know as much as I do. He doesn't talk about it. The warden hired psychiatrists to try to get him to talk, but it never worked."

"Never?"

Minion shakes his head. "He wouldn't let them. It was the first I'd seen him like that."

Roxanne should stop asking questions. She can't. "Like what?"

Minion hesitates. "Well…_mean_." He sighs. "He never was, before, and even after we started school he _tried_ to make friends. He genuinely wanted to make friends, which I took as a positive sign. But back at the prison he was just…he's _brilliant_, you know that," he says desperately, and Roxanne nods. "Well, most of the psychiatrists didn't bother coming back after the first session. He played games with the ones that kept trying. And after he decided to go bad, he stopped hiding it. The only reason we weren't expelled from school was that all the teachers were terrified of him. He turned around a little while later, but by then his reputation was secure."

"And he never talked to you about anything? Never said anything?"

Minion looks at her, his expression unreadable. Finally he says, "I asked and asked. Eventually he turned to me and said that he had learned a lot. And that one of the more interesting things he had learned was that human rights codes apply only to humans. He mentioned specifically the Declaration of Helsinki, the National Research Act, the Belmont Report, and Title 45 of the CFR." The fish smiles a little, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "After that, I stopped asking."

Roxanne has her knees pulled to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs. She isn't sure when that happened, but there are times when the world is not a nice place, when Roxanne remembers the way things really work – at the bottom line, after taxes – and this is one of those times. "Thank you for telling me."

Minion nods. He's aware of just how big a bombshell he just dropped, and he doesn't expect Roxanne will move anytime soon. "Would you prefer to be left alone?"

She nods.

"Okay. I'm sorry to have hit you with this so suddenly. Breakfast in half an hour?"

Another nod.

"Okay," Minion says again, sounding a little bit lost. He flutters a hand towards her, as if he isn't quite sure whether to offer physical comfort or not – he touches her hair, her shoulder, then turns quickly and leaves.

Roxanne takes a deep breath and puts her head between her knees, then curls into the smallest ball she can on Megamind's chair.

Holy _shit_.

She's got to get it together. She can't be shell-shocked all day, that won't do anybody any good. But. She _really_ had not seen this coming. It's a whole other can of worms.

Well, it explains a _lot_. It explains why Megamind seems so uncomfortable discussing the specifics of his physiology. It probably also explains why he is so insistent that the fact that he's an alien must be a huge barrier; the extent of his difference was hammered into him at a very young age, and not just by schoolyard bullies. And it explains why Minion brought Megamind to _her_ when he was injured, rather than a hospital or the jail. _"I can't take him to a hospital, they wouldn't know what to do with him and they'd call the government and if he can't defend himself—"_

She doesn't notice the quiet footsteps until they stop in front of her chair. Megamind's voice is quiet, calm. "Minion told you."

Roxanne leans forward, wraps her arms around his waist. Pushes the top of her head into his stomach, stares at the floor. "I had no idea."

"Not many people do," he admits, and he actually sounds faintly amused. "It's okay. It was a long time ago. I'm over it."

She makes a small, disbelieving noise, and fists her hands in his suit. Squeezes her eyes closed.

"Mostly," he amends, and runs his hands over her back, cards his fingers through her short hair. "Mostly over it. You caught me by surprise, and I was already feeling kind of ex-pose-ed. That's all."

Roxanne swallows. "Is there anything else I should know?"

Megamind hums for a minute, as if deep in thought. "There's a bomb under Washington. It's set to go off in the event of my untimely death. If it ever detonates, there'll be a flash of light, a burst of confetti, and a little flag that says, 'Bang!' on it. But that's all."

"What?" Roxanne pulls her head back and looks up at him.

Megamind is staring down at her with laughing eyes. "I really am okay."

When she still looks dubious, he actually chuckles. "You're finding out about this now, but it happened when I was _six_, okay? I'm a grown-up now. Got my big-boy pants and everything. Really. _I'm okay_."

"Are you sure?"

Megamind grins and puts one hand on his chest and the other on his abdomen. "Cross my hearts and hope to die."

Roxanne blinks. "Hearts? Plural?" She hasn't come across that in her research either.

"No. Not really. I just have the one." His grin widens, and he spreads his arms in a grossly exaggerated gesture of _I-don't-care_. "Sure, it's got six chambers, but who's counting?" He looks back down at Roxanne. "Please get up. That doesn't look comfortable."

Reluctantly, Roxanne lets go of him and unfolds herself from the chair. "You're _really_ okay?"

He sighs, puts both hands on her shoulders and looks her in the eye. "Yes. I am. I may be on the nuttier side of sane about some things, but I moved past that particular problem a long, long time ago. It may shed some light on certain of my eccentricities, but I haven't had any problems because of it in years. And honestly, it wasn't as bad as all that."

"And it won't happen again, right?" Roxanne has to ask. "They're not going to show up and take you away again, right?"

Megamind nods and holds up a finger, signaling _wait_. Then he peels back one of the top corners of the blue lightning bolt on his suit, revealing a hidden pocket, and removes something rectangular and silvery-black. He hands it to Roxanne. "This," he says as she turns it over in her hands, "is the extraterrestrial equivalent of a green card."

"This certifies that Mega Mind is legally a non-human person and combined citizen of the United Nations of Planet Earth." She looks up. "Your name is legally Megamind? It's not an alias?"

He shrugs. "My people choose our own names. Besides, it's who I am. That card, there," he points at it, "means that I'm bound by your laws and entitled to the same rights and protections that you are. Wayne has one, too, but it's kind of redundant because _he_ has adoption papers. I think there are a few others, but I've never bothered to track them down. Anyway." He takes the card back from her. "I have never let it expire, and I do _not_ want to find out what would happen if I did. But the general gist of it is, as long as I have that…" He trails off, shakes his head. "I'm safe."

"Good," Roxanne says firmly, and hugs him hard.

He closes his eyes and returns the gesture. He will never get tired of hugs, never.

After a minute, Roxanne stirs. "Megamind?"

"Hmm?"

"Is there _really_ a bomb under Washington?"


	14. Chapter 14

Laaaaaast chapter! In which we roll out the pseudoscience again, loose ends are tied up, and everyone dies of fluff overload. Thank you to everyone who reviewed – this story would not have been what it was without your support, suggestions, questions, critiques, and hilarious one-liners. I don't want to name names for fear of forgetting and offending people, because all of you were just too fantastic, but credit where it's due, the mention of punching faces belongs to Dani Kin. Thank you all so much for reading!

_Ciao ciao all! Same time next week?_

The Modified Stationary Panic (c) to Patrick McManus, and ivy-covered professors (c) to Tom Lehrer. Everything else (c) to Dreamworks.

**Chapter 14**

Minion looks up and jumps a little when Megamind tap-tap-taps into the kitchen. He hadn't been at all sure if Megamind would even bother coming to breakfast today, let alone with such a broad grin on his face. "You're here!"

Megamind throws himself into a chair, hooks his arm over the back. "I'm not as fragile as you think, Minion."

_Evidently not_. It's a nice surprise. "Where's Miss Ritchi?"

"Getting dressed. What's for eats?"

Minion rolls his eyes and pulls out a frying pan, a carton of eggs, and a waffle iron. The problem is over and done with, and his master has done what he always does and skipped right along to the next order of business. "Eggs and waffles. Sunny-side-up?"

Megamind nods. "Please." After a moment, he asks, "Don't you need, you know, _ingredients_ to make waffles?"

Minion turns towards him, skillet in hand. "Sir, I may be your minion, but you are perfectly capable of making your own darned waffle batter. If you could fry eggs, I'd be making the waffles, but since you're incapable of turning them without breaking the yolk…" He stabs the spatula in Megamind's direction. "Get stirring!"

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

When Roxanne comes in, she stops dead in her tracks in the doorway, takes one look at both of them, and bursts out laughing. "What on earth is going on in here?"

Megamind pushes himself up off the floor and onto his knees, egg dripping down his face, and points an accusatory finger at Minion. "He started it!"

"I did not!" Minion sits up. His dome is dusted with flour, and there's sugar in the fur of the gorilla suit. He's holding another egg ready to throw. "He _tripped_ me!"

Megamind turns and glares at him, his expression full of good-naturedly indignant rage. "I didn't! You _stepped_ on me!"

"Well maybe if you weren't always in the way –"

"_I_ am never in _your_ way!"

Minion gasps. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means if you didn't always hog the stove, other people might be able to reach the waffle mix!"

"Well maybe _you_ should learn some patience!"

"Cold-blooded reptile!"

"Blue-skinned _freak!_"

Megamind recoils, eyes flashing. "Ohhhh, that is _it_," he fumes, and folds his arms over his chest. "We can't be friends." And, still kneeling on the floor, he turns his back on Minion in a huff.

Minion makes a face at his back, then glances at Roxanne, who has been watching the tiff with uncertain amusement. He holds a finger to the front of his dome in an approximation of the signal for quiet, then dips the index finger of his other hand through the top of his dome, into the water.

And then sticks his wet finger in Megamind's ear.

Megamind leaps into the air as if he's been stung, making a high-pitched chittering sound, then dances away, flailing. He comes to rest behind Roxanne, rubbing his ear like mad and shuddering all over and hopping from foot to foot. "Ew ew ew ew _ew!_ Ear is wet, ear is wet, ear is wet!" He glares at Minion, who is too busy dying of mirth on the floor to even attempt a coherent response. "Minion, you're _gross!_ That was uncalled-for!"

He looks at Roxanne, who is doubled over and laughing harder than she probably ever has in her life, and scowls. "Traitor," he mutters, and stomps over to the stove.

When Minion and Roxanne finally manage to stop crying with laughter, Megamind has cleaned the egg off his face and is sitting on the kitchen counter with a mixing bowl, calmly licking waffle batter off of a wooden spoon. He sends a withering glare in their direction. "Children. You are both children."

Minion sticks his tongue out at him.

"I prefer toilet paper," Megamind tells him loftily.

Minion wrinkles his face. "Well, you still can't turn eggs."

"No, unfortunately I must leave the egg-turning to people who are good at it. And on that note, hey, Roxaaaanne…"

"Don't look at me," she says hastily. "I can't cook, remember?"

"Oh, right." Megamind looks thoughtful for a moment, then turns to Minion, beaming. "Well, Minion, it looks like your job is still secure!"

Minion waves the spatula in a pantomime of glee. "Oh, hooray for me! It's my lucky day!"

Roxanne slides into a chair, puts her head in her hands. "What have I gotten myself into? I'm dating an alien and his fish and they are both completely _nuts_."

Minion glances over his shoulder. "I'm flattered, Miss Ritchi, but I really don't think of you that way."

She looks up at him through her fingers. "You know what I mean. You're as much a part of my life as Megamind is."

Megamind scowls. "No he is _not_."

"Yes he is," Roxanne says, just as Minion says, "Yes I am."

Megamind huffs, but he can't hold the grin back anymore. "You two are impossible," he laughs, and dips the spoon back into the bowl for another go.

"Hey, hey, hey, stop eating that, you have to make _waffles_ out of it!" Minion reaches for the bowl, but Megamind holds it out of his reach. "Give it!"

"It tasteth fine just like thif!" Megamind protests around the spoon in his mouth.

"You might not be able to get salmonella, but _she_ can," Minion says sternly, then droops a little. "Oh, I don't know why I even _bother_. Go sit down, Sir, I'll take care of it."

"Thank you, Minion." Megamind hands him the bowl and the spoon and hops down from the counter. "I appreciate it."

"Oh what_ever_," Minion huffs, but Roxanne can hear him smiling.

"Speaking of 'whatever,'" Roxanne says, deciding that now would be a good time to change the subject, "I talked to an old friend of ours yesterday."

Megamind freezes, eyes narrowed. "Did you really?" he asks carefully, glancing at Minion.

"Yes, I stopped by the prison. Hal was there." Megamind relaxes. _Interesting_, Roxanne thinks. _He thought I meant Wayne. He's worried about Minion knowing about Wayne?_ "He told me to pass along a message. Something like, 'Old Mitch says to watch your back.'" She takes a drink of orange juice. "Apparently you made some enemies when you switched sides."

Megamind nods slowly, but to Roxanne's surprise, it's Minion who asks, "What does Vinnie have to say about it?"

She looks up at the fish, startled, as he slides two fried eggs on a chipped plate onto the table in front of her. "Oh – thank you – you mean Vincent? According to Hal, he's on your side."

"Well, that's good." Minion hands another plate to Megamind.

"Thanks, Minion." Megamind squishes the middle of his egg with the flat of his fork, grinning when the yellow splashes onto the plate. "And I had wondered about that – thank you for letting me know, Roxanne. Pass the salt?"

Roxanne passes it. "Also, you should know that Hal claims to bear you no ill will over what happened." Megamind blinks at her, raises his eyebrows, and Roxanne shrugs. "I know. I was surprised too. I don't know why not, he didn't say. But he seems to be enjoying himself."

_That_ doesn't seem to faze Megamind at all, and Minion actually laughs. "I understand they gave him our old cell?"

"I don't know. I didn't ask, sorry."

Megamind nods again, and they eat for a few minutes in silence.

"Sir, question," Minion says after a little while. "I think it's interesting that _you_ don't resonate to the same frequency that I do, but Miss Ritchi does. We were trying to figure that one out when you left to go find Anderson. What's your take on it?"

"Minion thought I might have linked with him, the way you have," Roxanne adds.

Megamind blinks, but he doesn't dismiss the idea offhand, as Roxanne had expected him to. "I suppose that's possible," he admits. "Honestly, I'm not really sure how it all works. But it wouldn't be the reason you got sick. Minion is in a tank of water – a glass tank with a fairly advanced filtration system – and any signals he was sending would have been blocked at that distance." He frowns a little. "But nobody else picked up on the problem, so _something_ must be getting through to you."

"Do pheromones even _work_ on humans?" Roxanne asks.

Megamind scoffs. "There's some controversy over that, but yes. Yes, they do." He closes his eyes for a moment, turns his face to Minion, and opens his mouth. His nostrils flare. He inhales, then closes his mouth, and Roxanne can see his throat working.

"What are you –" she begins, but Minion shushes her. Megamind turns towards Roxanne then, and does the same thing in her direction.

A minute later he starts laughing. Minion and Roxanne glance at each other, and Megamind opens his eyes. "Yes. There's a connection there. But the fact that the same symptoms manifested in both of you is pure chance." He shakes his head, still laughing. "I don't believe this. Okay. Well, it's nothing to worry about. If it hadn't been for Anderson, I don't think any of us would have even noticed. Roxanne, your body is doing the same thing every human's does when it spends any excessive amount time with another being – you're tuning yourself to us, and we're probably tuning ourselves to you. You've started producing heliotocine – not much of it, but enough to confuse your systems when the vibrations changed. Can you hear the reactors now?"

Roxanne frowns and listens. She has to listen hard, but it's there – a gentle pulse so low it almost isn't even present. "Yes."

Minion's eyebrows go up, and Megamind nods, smiling. "I can't, and my ears are loads better than yours. You aren't _hearing_ the reactors, you're feeling them, and that feeling is manifesting itself to you as sound. Heliotocine is a communication and recognition pheromone for Minion, but in primates, it's a neurotransmitter. A brain-signal. A rather specific one."

Roxanne shakes her head. "Please, just tell me what happened. I don't need to know why, I won't understand, it'll just confuse me."

Megamind nods. "Fair enough. The concentration of sodium salts in your perilymph has been altered."

Roxanne stares at him for a moment out of narrowed eyes. "Maybe you missed the part where that was supposed to make _more_ sense, not less."

"It's an inner ear problem," Minion translates before Megamind can say anything further. "Congratulations, you now have a wider range of hearing than most other humans. Surprise!"

Roxanne looks uncertainly from Megamind to Minion and back again. "I'm not sure if this is something that happens to all humans when they spend too much time around their mates."

Megamind shrugs. "Neither am I. As far as I know, you're the only human who's spent enough time around me and Minion to be affected." His grin turns sharp. "Yet. We'll see what happens to those bozos from the Technology and Change Management Department in a month or so."

"The who?" Roxanne blinks at him. "Why? Are you working with them particularly closely?"

"Yes." Megamind sighs and rubs a hand over his face. "I finished their database last night, _finally_, and I have to meet with them again on Monday morning to present it."

"They won't let him be," Minion tells Roxanne in an undertone. The waffle iron dings and he stands up. "He's swamped enough as it is without having to deal with these guys."

Megamind, however, shakes his head. "Minion, I can handle it. You know I can."

Minion takes the waffle out with a pair of wooden tongs and puts it on a plate, then looks unhappily at Roxanne, who looks back at Megamind. "No," she says. "No, you can't. When was the last time you slept?"

"I slept from five until seven-thirty this morning," he protests. "That's two and a half hours right there. And about a half hour earlier last night." Roxanne sends him her best _stop-avoiding-the-question_ look and asks again. He folds his arms over his chest. "Thursday afternoon."

"For how long?"

He shrugs. "An hour or so?"

Roxanne's eyes narrow. "How _long_, Megamind."

Megamind sighs. "Forty-three minutes."

"You see?" Minion asks. He cuts the waffle into thirds, drops one third into his tank, and carries the other two to the table. Roxanne's chair squeaks a little bit as she leans back and stares at Megamind, shaking her head.

"There's just so much to _do!_" Megamind exclaims. "I don't have _time_ to sleep!"

"Yes you do," says Roxanne. "You always have time to sleep. Good lord, haven't you ever heard of delegation? You don't have to do _everything_, you know."

He scowls. "Are you suggesting that I just abandon the city again? Let everything just fix itself?"

Roxanne has to roll her eyes at that one. "You're being dramatic."

"It's what I do best," he agrees.

"You don't have to _abandon the city_." Roxanne leans forward, grabs his hand. He blinks. "But we – 'we' being the citizens of Metro City – know how to deal with destruction and mayhem. We've actually become quite good at it, over the years. There are systems and policies in place to re-group and re-organize after something goes wrong. Granted, most of those haven't been put into action because the extent of the damage was so extreme, but the worst of it has already been fixed, thanks to you and Minion and the brainbots. You've already done more than any of us expected. We can take it from here."

Megamind is quiet for a long time, thinking. Roxanne isn't sure what's going through his head, but if he's as embroiled in the city's governmental system as Minion seems to think he is, he will have already heard about the secondary employment and payroll policies. "Listen," Megamind says eventually. "I can't just leave the city to its own devices when I caused the vast majority of the damage."

"I'm not saying you have to." _Note to self: Megamind thinks in terms of black and white ultimatums. Grey areas and compromises probably don't even occur to him_. "I'm saying you're like a CEO. You sort out the problems that the individual departments can't sort out on their own. But the individual departments _can_ sort out most problems on their own; they're just using you as a crutch. Stop micromanaging, and stop letting people use you to solve their problems for them. The TCMD can build their own database."

Megamind half-smiles. "I'll take it under advisement."

Then the waffle iron goes off again. Roxanne moves to stand up, but Minion waves her back down. "No, no, I'm fine," he says. "You sit."

Roxanne watches him for a moment, then makes a decision. _As long as we're getting things out in the open_…

"I also have a message for Minion, from another old friend of ours," Roxanne says, glancing at Megamind. He pauses with a forkful of waffle halfway to his mouth. "For 'the fish,' actually." She turns to face Minion, who has his back to her. "Wayne Scott says to say, 'Hey.'"

Minion turns slowly around. He isn't smiling. Megamind becomes very interested in his breakfast.

"Well." Minion's voice is flat. "I suppose I should say something like, 'Oh, well tell him I said hi next time you see him,' but I am not going to say that. Neither," he continues, turning back around and taking a plate out of the cupboard, "will I ask whether or not he's doing well." He puts the plate down a little too hard.

"I got it." Megamind is out of his chair and at Minion's side almost faster than Roxanne can blink, picking up shards of broken ceramic with quick, clever fingers and dropping them into the garbage can.

Minion closes his eyes for a moment. "Why," he says after a moment, "can't he just leave us alone?"

Megamind glances up at him. "I know you don't like him, Minion, but –"

"Don't _like_ him?" Minion stares down at his master, incredulous. "Don't _like_ him? He calls me 'the fish!' It's all he _ever_ calls me!" He swallows, retrieves a whisk broom and a dustpan from beside the refrigerator. Megamind takes them from him without saying anything, and Minion lets him. "Makes me want to punch 'the superhero' in his 'the face,'" he mutters. Then he scowls at Megamind again. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Megamind looks up from where he's emptying the dustpan into the garbage. "Because I knew you'd react like this."

The waffle iron dings again to remind them that it's still on. Minion turns, but Megamind is in the way. "Sit down. I think I can handle putting a waffle on a plate."

Minion nods and takes the chair across from Roxanne, looks at her. "How long have you known?"

"A little over a month. He faked his death because he wanted to stop being a hero. I'm sorry we didn't tell you sooner. I thought," she says, and sneaks a quick glance at Megamind, "well, honestly, I thought…"

"She thought I had already told you," Megamind finishes without looking up. "And I should have."

But Minion shakes his head. "There was a lot going on. This was after we…?"

Megamind nods and sets the second waffle down on the table. Nobody touches it.

Roxanne doesn't ask. "I'm sorry. I didn't know you hated him this much."

"I don't _hate_ him." Minion looks unhappy. "I just really, really don't like him. It's a silly old grudge, but I don't like him." He pauses, frowns a little. "But I'm glad he's not dead. Means you didn't really kill him, Sir. I assume that's why you went to the old schoolhouse? To talk to him?"

Megamind colors, speaks without thinking. "I wanted to talk to somebody who wouldn't be able to convince me that my plan was stupid."

Minion stares at him for a moment, stunned speechless. "You talked to Metro Man instead of me? About a plan?" He blinks, sits back in his chair. Megamind drops his gaze.

Roxanne opens her mouth to say something, but her mind has gone suddenly blank and nothing comes out. The last thing she wants is for Minion to be upset, especially with Megamind. What she had said before is true – Minion is a major part of her life, probably as much as Megamind is, and to see him look so confused and wounded about something Megamind said or did is very odd and Roxanne does not like it. She supposes that they must have had their share of disagreements over the years, but she's only ever seen them on good terms. They've always worked as more or less one unit.

"I'm sorry." That's all Megamind says – he offers no explanation or excuse, only looks tentatively back up at Minion and waits.

Minion stares back for a long moment, then starts to speak.

Then Megamind inhales sharply and his whole body pitches forward – he catches himself on the table, slides gracelessly to the floor. "Min—_Min_ion—"

"I've got you, Sir." Minion dodges around the table with surprising speed and agility, catches Megamind before he can topple over sideways. Megamind fists both hands in the thick fur of the gorilla suit and clings desperately, tries to pull himself up.

Minion doesn't look distressed, and Megamind seems more annoyed than anything else. _What's going on?_ Roxanne wants to ask, but her voice seems to have gone on a brief and unwelcome holiday.

"'Ss riddikulus," Megamind slurs. He is straining; the tendons in his neck are clearly defined and his knuckles are white. "J'st woke up. Three hourssleep. Shouldn't. _Shouldn't_." He scowls shakes his head once as though attempting to clear it, blinks very rapidly. There's a glassy film over his eyes, and he can't focus.

"I know, Sir, I know. Don't fight it." Minion gets behind him, one hand cradling the back of his head and the other supporting his back. Megamind's eyelids flutter but he blinks them open stubbornly.

"Mm_sorry_," he insists, and then he goes limp and his eyes slide closed.

Minion shakes his head. "We've _got_ to figure something out before he kills himself doing this," he tells Roxanne bluntly. "He's going to get brain damage if he doesn't get some real sleep, and caffeine is as much an upper for him as it is for humans." Then he brightens. "Hey, I know! We'll get Metro Man to whack him over the head twice a day!"

Roxanne finds her voice. "I thought the idea was to _avoid_ brain damage." She swallows. "What just happened?"

"You remember. I told you. If he doesn't get enough rest, sometimes he just passes out and sleeps for a day." Minion shrugs tiredly. "You'd do the same, if you got as little sleep as he does." He stands, picking Megamind up as he does so. "I'm sorry, Miss Ritchi, but can you get the dishes today? I need to put him in bed."

Roxanne waves the apology aside. "Of course I can do the dishes. You do everything around here, it'll be nice to help out for a change." She doesn't ask if Megamind will be all right; she doesn't have to. Minion is treating this development like something that just kind of happens sometimes, and Roxanne figures she'll just take her cues from Minion until she gets used to his and Megamind's idiosyncrasies. "I really am sorry we didn't tell you about Wayne sooner."

Minion glances back over his shoulder at her. "It's okay. There was a lot going on, and honestly, it's probably a good thing he didn't talk to me about that particular plan. I wouldn't have let him go through with it, and then nothing would have been solved, so all's well that ends well. No harm done. And just leave the waffle iron, I can do that one."

Roxanne chuckles. "I'll be fine, Minion, but thanks."

He nods and pulls the kitchen door closed after him. Almost immediately, Roxanne pulls her cell phone out of her pocket.

It rings three times, and then a rough "H'lo?" crackles through. Roxanne grins.

"Hey, Drew. Sorry to call you so early. Did I wake you up?"

There's a brief scuffling noise. "Yeah, a bit." Her brother sniffs. "What's up? Everything okay? Mom said you or Jo was having some boy troubles?"

"Fixed it. Everything's fine," she tells him. "Oh, and I'm seeing someone."

"No kidding?" He sounds sleepily surprised. "Anybody I know?"

"No, but when Mom asks, you can tell her he's a nuclear physicist and very well-established in the area." Roxanne doesn't know if it's a 'mom thing,' but her mother tends to be over-inquisitive about her children's partners. "Let her stew over that one."

"Any chance of a name?"

She badly wants to give him one, but she doesn't want to saddle Megamind with a name he'll hate. Who knows how long they'll be using this persona? "No. Ma can just have fun trying to figure out which ivy-covered professor I've fallen for. Listen, I need a favor."

"A favor for Little Sister Dearest?" He's grinning, she can tell.

She snorts. "That sounds like the title of a children's book."

"One of the mildly distressing kind, yes?"

"Absolutely."

"All right." He sniffs again, and Roxanne hears clinking, a yowl, a clatter, and a distant, muffled curse. "Sorry. Stepped on the cat. Dropped the phone."

Roxanne blinks and tries not to smile. "Is he okay?"

"Well the little blighter took a chunk out of my leg, so I don't really care at the moment, now do I?"

The cat's okay, then. She'd know if it wasn't. Andrew complains constantly about the former stray, but it's obvious that he loves Spook. "How's work going? You still have access to the lab?"

There's a pause. "No, I won't sell you any meth."

"I don't want _meth_," Roxanne snaps, but she can't help but smile at her brother's never-ending dry humor. "I want to know if you can make me a timed-release caffeine-based pill—"

"Oh come on, gimme something _hard_."

"—that isn't a stimulant and won't keep you up all night," she finishes firmly. A short, stunned silence follows this request.

"Let me get this straight," Andrew says eventually. "You want a caffeine pill that doesn't do what caffeine _does?_"

"It'd be great if it also wasn't addictive."

He blows out into the phone. In her mind's eye, Roxanne can see him running a hand backwards through his hair and making it stand on end. "Well, it's a challenge. Can I ask why you want such a fantastically _useless_ pill?"

"Much good may it do you."

"Fine, be that way." He sighs. "All right, I'll see what I can do. This is probably illegal, you know."

Roxanne grins and shifts the phone to her shoulder, holding it in place with her ear as she starts clearing the table. "I know. I'll owe you one."

Minion clanks back in then, grinning from ear to ear. "Miss Ritchi, you _have_ to see – oh, sorry." He holds up the newspaper. _Megamind allies with Truth and Justice to save Metro City – again!_

Roxanne snorts. "Sorry, Drew. I'll have to call you back."

Her brother is muttering to himself as he makes coffee. "What? Oh, right, okay," he says, and goes right back to thinking aloud. "…Attach something like adenosine to the molecule – no, that would just cause drowsiness. Maybe if I bound something to the bit that mimics adenosine? That could work…"

"Goodbye, Drew," Roxanne says loudly, and hangs up. In response to Minion's inquisitive frown, she says, "My brother. He works in a chem lab in San Fransisco. You'd like him, he's _nuts_."

"If you say so," Minion says. "You should read that article. It's _hilarious_. They're calling you and Akos 'Truth' and 'Justice.' What did you _say_ to that photographer?"

"Anything to make him shut up." Roxanne sighs and squirts dish soap into the hot water in the sink. "Minion, is Megamind _really_ okay?" They both know she isn't talking about the sleep problems. "He told me he was, but I thought I'd ask you. You know him better than I do."

"He really is fine, I think. He's actually been fine on that count for years. Honestly, I wouldn't have said anything, but I thought you should probably know. And it seemed like you two had been – well, talking about personal matters, so I thought, _why not?_" He shrugs. "I apologize for not saying anything before. There just didn't seem to be a good time."

Roxanne grins. "Tell you what," she says. "I'll forgive you for not telling me about Megamind's childhood run-in with the government if you'll forgive me for not telling you about Wayne. Deal?"

He blinks at her. "Really, there's nothing to forgive."

"I know, I was trying to…Look, it doesn't matter, just shake on it, Minion."

Laughing, the fish shakes her hand. Then he picks up a dishtowel.

When she moved back to Metro City years ago, Roxanne never expected to find herself washing dishes with an alien fish on a Sunday morning and being perfectly content. All the years she had been getting kidnapped, she had never expected to find herself regularly sharing a bed with her kidnapper and being completely happy about it.

But standing next to Minion at the kitchen sink, joking and teasing back and forth about nothing in particular as they do the dishes, Roxanne cannot think of anywhere she would rather be.


	15. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Two weeks later, an overnight package arrives for Roxanne. There's a card lying on top of the packing peanuts inside – it has a little old man with flyaway hair and scorched eyebrows holding a smoking test tube. She grins and opens it. The handwriting is tiny and legible only to those who know how to read it, and the letter takes up the entirety of the inside of the card. It is also written in a giant spiral, so that Roxanne has to keep turning the card around and around and around in order to be able to read it.

_Hello sister dear,_

_Here's my first attempt at that pill you wanted. I tested it on myself before sending it to you, and noticed absolutely no effect whatsoever, but it's definitely caffeine-based and that's what you wanted. Maybe sometime you'll let me in on the joke? I could just as easily send you some sugar pills. I hear they work miracles and they're a lot cheaper to make. Anyway, let me know if the pill does what you want it to. There's sixty in that bottle, and they're twelve-hour pills, so you should have enough for a month or so. But then I don't actually know if they work or not._

_I hear you have rain, something about a freak storm off the lake. Could you send some my way? The weather here is beastly, we haven't had so much as a cloud in two weeks and the sun is having a grand old time beating the stuffing out of everyone down here. _

_Here's a riddle for you, let me know if you figure it out. I gave you an easy one, you can thank me later. You know the rules. No Googling, and if you ask for help you have to tell where you got it. Oh, and Mom thinks you're dating a Professor J. Johnston, at Metro University, but my money's on Dr. Weinstein. You did say ivy-covered. _

"_What did the bartender say when oxygen, hydrogen, sulfur, sodium, and phosphorous walked into his bar?"_

_Good luck! I'm sending you a big, sweaty hug. _

_~Drew_

She laughs. She has no idea what the joke is, but Drew's jokes are always like that – chemistry-related and amusing to nobody but him. She puts the card down on the coffee table. A quick rummage through the packing peanuts, and she pulls out a small, unlabeled white bottle. It is full of white, oval pills, also unlabeled. Highly suspicious.

She picks up her phone, already smiling. It goes to voicemail straightaway: _Hi, you've reached W. Pavel Chudakov, I'm not in, leave a message and I'll call you back. …What? Wait, which button is—_

_Beeeeep_.

"Hey love, it's Roxanne. It's about 5 pm. I have something for you. A surprise. You should stop by my apartment later if the storm's not too bad."

She hangs up the phone and pulls the curtains concealing her French double doors to the side. Dark clouds are boiling in off the lake. "You should go to San Francisco," Roxanne tells them. "Where you're wanted."

"Oh snap," says a voice, very quietly, behind her. She spins, heart pounding.

"Megamind, good lord…"

His shoulders shake with silent laughter. "I was already on my way over. Had your door open when you called."

She presses her lips together in mock severity. "Did you break my lock?"

He puts her brother's card down carefully back where he found it, takes off his cape and collar and drapes them neatly over the back of her sofa, then moves over to her and kisses her softly on the mouth. "I never break locks," he murmurs.

Roxanne chuckles and knocks her forehead against his. Outside, thunder rumbles long and low. "Did you drive here?"

"I'm afraid I walked." He looks over her shoulder, out of the glass doors that lead to her balcony. Sheets of summer rain course down the panes.

Roxanne smiles. "Pity. I guess you'll have to stay here until the rain lets up."

"I guess I will." He moves away, presses his nose and both hands flat against the glass and peers out. "Trouble is this weather isn't natural," he admits sheepishly. "I _may_ have sat on the remote for the storm generator yesterday."

He'll probably always be like this – breaking and entering and entirely cool about it, then goofy thirty seconds later. He really isn't all that predictable. "How long will it last?"

He looks up for a moment, frowning. "Well, I sat on it for three hours, so…twelve. Twelve hours, more or less."

She looks at him, unsure whether to laugh or shake her head despairingly. "Megamind…"

"Don't worry, I got all the ships in off the lake, and it's a fairly localized storm. We'll be all right. And it'll be good for the late-summer crops." He leans harder against the glass. Roxanne is tempted to lift the latch on her door and send him tumbling out onto her balcony as a joke. But she remembers him standing in a downpour once before, and wonders if maybe that particular joke would send the wrong message.

She comes up behind him and wraps her arms around his waist, and he smiles and leans back against her, leaving two handprints and a mushroom-shaped nose-print on the glass. "You remember the last time it rained like this?" she asks. He doesn't reply,

They watch the rain together in silence for a moment, and then Roxanne presses a kiss to the skin behind his ear. He shivers a little, then laughs. "Don't _do_ that," he scolds. "You're so _distracting_."

She grins. "It's better than what happened last time," she says, and Megamind turns his head and looks at her.

Then he smiles. "It is, that," he replies quietly, and kisses her. Outside, the thunder rolls again, followed by lightning. The storm is getting worse.

Neither of them notices.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

_Hi Drew,_

_The pills work wonderfully, and thank you. I'll let you in on the joke a little bit after Christmas, I think – in the meantime, please either keep sending the pills or send me instructions on how to make them. I have access to a fairly extensive lab, and I'm not all that bothered by legal._

_Tell Mom to keep guessing. You should keep guessing too. You're not even close. _

_The answer to your riddle is OH SNaP, courtesy of my boyfriend, who would like to request a more difficult puzzle next time. And you can have all the rain you want; we have plenty!_

_Ew, you're gross, don't touch me._

_Love,_

_Roxanne_


End file.
